
Book._ X/g 



CQEICRICHT DEPOSIE 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 

AND OTHER BILLY BROWN STORIES 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

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TORONTO 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 

AND OTHER BILLY BROWN STORIES 

BY 
IDA M. TARBELL 

AUTHOR OF "LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN :! 



N^m fork 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1922 

All rights reserved 



Ti 



\ 5C" 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



Copyright, 1907 
By McCLURE, PHILLIPS & COMPANY 

Copyright, 1907, 1908 and 1909 
By THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING COMPANY 

Copyright, 1909 
By MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 

New York 

Copyright, 1920 
By AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS 

New York 

Copyright, 1920 and 1922 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



FERRIS 

PRINTING COMPANY 

NEW YORK CITY 



FEB -fa 1922 
©H! AR54544 



TO MY SISTER 



INTRODUCTION 

More than one clue must be unrav- 
elled to reach an understanding of Abra- 
ham Lincoln. Among them there surely 
must be reckoned his capacity for com- 
panionship. None more catholic in his 
selections ever lived. All men were his 
fellows. He went unendingly and uncon- 
sciously for the most part, to the meeting 
place that awaited him in each man's na- 
ture. There might be a wall, often there 
was; but he knew, no one better, that 
there is always a secret door in human 
walls. Sooner or later he discovered it, 
put his finger on its spring, passed 
through and settled into the place behind 
that was his. 

His life was rich in companionships 
VII 



INTRODUCTION 

with unlikely people, often people who 
began by contempt or semi-contempt of 
him. There was the town bully of his 
youth, whom he soundly thrashed for try- 
ing a foul in a wrestling match, and who 
rose from the dust to proclaim Lincoln 
the best man who ever broke into camp ; 
thirty years later there was his own Sec- 
retary of State, with his self-complacent 
assumption of the President's unfitness 
for leadership and of his own call to di- 
rect the nation, put gently but firmly in 
his place and soon frankly and nobly de- 
claring, "He's the best of us all." 

He had many pass-keys — ^wrath, mag- 
nanimity, shrewdness, patience, clarity 
of judgment, humor, resolve; and in the 
end, one or the other or all together 
opened every closed door, and he sat 
down at home with men of the most di- 
vergent view and experience: the bully, 
the scholarly, the cunning, the pious, the 
VIII 



INTRODUCTION 

ambitious, the selfish, the great, the weak, 
the boy, the man. 

Particularly was Lincoln at home with 
men like the Billy Brown of these pages, 
men whose native grain had not been 
obscured by polish and oil. There were 
many of them in his time in Illinois, ply- 
ing their trades or professions more or less 
busily, but never allowing industry to in- 
terfere with opportunities for compan- 
ionship. They were men of shrewdness, 
humor, usually modest, not over-weight- 
ed with ambition. Their appetite for talk, 
for politics, for reports on human exhib- 
its of all sorts, never dulled. Their love 
of companionship outstripped even their 
naturally intolerant partisanship. 

These men, unconsciously for the most 
part, resis'ted the social veneering that, 
beginning in Illinois in Lincoln's day, 
rapidly overlaid the state. In his first 
contact with Springfield in the '30's he 
IX 



INTRODUCTIO'N 

remarked the "flourishing about in car- 
riages," the separation of people into 
groups according to money, antecedents, 
social €^tiquette. He never allowed con- 
vention, address, ceremony, however for- 
eign to him, to interfere with his human 
relations — ^he went over or around them. 
But, natural man that he was, he found 
a special freedom with those in whom the 
essence of human nature remained un- 
mixed and uncorked. 

The original of Billy Brown was such 
a man. He was still keeping his drug 
store in Springfield in the '90's when the 
writer made studies there for a "Life of 
Lincoln." She passed many an hour in 
Lincoln's chair, while Billy, tipped back 
in something less precious, talked. There 
were Billy Browns in other towns — 
Bloomington, Princeton, Quincy, Chi- 
cago. Their memory of Mr. Lincoln w^as 
among the most precious and satisfying 
X 



INTRODUCTION 

things in their Hves. When business was 
dull or the day rainy and consequently 
there were few or no interruptions, the 
talk you started by questions soon be- 
came a soliloqey. Head against the wall, 
feet on desk, eyes far away, voice soft- 
ened, they re-lived the old friendship. 
Their memories were tender, reverent 
but singularly devoid of the thing that 
we call hero-worship. Mr. Lincoln re- 
mained too real to them, too interesting 
and companionable. 

The sense of intimacy with him wiiich 
they treasured, their conviction that he 
recognized them as his friends, had little 
or no trace of familiarity. He was always 
"Mr. Lincoln" to them, never "Abe," nor 
would they tolerate the use of that word. 
I never saw my Springfield Billy Bro^\Ti 
so angrily indignant as in talking of a 
townsman who affected the name. True, 
he and Billy were rivals in reminiscence, 
XI 



INTRODUCTION 

but that was not the basis of his resent- 
ment. "He never called Mr. Lincoln that 
to his face" was Billy's complaint. That 
is, the use of the name gave a false color 
to the recollections and only truth was 
tolerable where Mr. Lincoln was con- 
cerned. 

If Mr. Lincoln's fellowship with the 
Billy Browns of Illinois was based on his 
love of sheer human nature, he found in 
them, too, something very precious to 
him, and that was a humor that answered 
his own. The spring from which his hu- 
mor flowed was strong with native salts 
and so was theirs. It was naked but clean, 
devoid of evil insinuation. It was always 
out - with - it — strong, pungent words ; 
strong, pungent facts. The humor was 
not in words or facts, it was in what they 
pointed — the illumination they gave of 
life and men. Lincoln's humor was part 
of his passion for reality, truthfulness, 
XII 



INTRODUCTION 

freedom. The Billy Browns answered 
him and gave him more of a particular 
kind of salt he craved, in a life in many 
ways starved, starved for love and hope 
and gaiety, for all of which he had great 
natural capacity. 

The youthfulness of their spirit en- 
deared them to him. They were usually 
some fifteen or twenty years his junior; 
but in feeling the difference was greater. 
Lincoln early looked on himself and 
spoke of himself as an old man. It was 
not years — i't was burdens, de'feats, the 
failure to find a satisfying purpose in 
life. He was old, and he craved youth. 
These men had it. They were perennial 
children. Youth seemed to warm him, and 
he sought it wherever it was to be found 
— in children, boys, young men. They in 
turn instinctively came to him. A succes- 
sion of youth in all its forms follows him 
through his goings and comings in the 
XIII 



INTRODUCTION 
streets of Springfield, along the route 
of the old Eighth Circuit of Illinois, 
through the streets of Washington, into 
the White House. 

His own children stirred the deepest 
passion his unsatisfied heart ever knew. 
Tad, whose stuttering tongue and rest- 
less, valiant spirit brought out all ]Mr. 
Lincoln's tenderness, sat beside him 
every free evening, going over the pic- 
tures and text of the shoals of books 
which' publishers send to a President ; he 
helping the boy's stumbling tongue to 
frame his comments — a perfection of fel- 
lowship between them. When the nights 
were not free — and that was often, for 
there were long conferences running into 
the small hours, the lad slept beside him 
on the floor of the conference room. And 
when it was over, he gathered him up 
in his arms and himself put him to bed, 
consoled in the harrowing muddle 
XIV 



INTRODUCTION 

of affairs by the perfect love between 
them. 

One can never be too thankful that he 
had John Hay, then a j^outh in his early 
twenties — and such a j^outh! The joy and 
fun and understanding between them as 
it crops out in Hay's letters is a streak of 
pure sunshine across the almost soddenly 
tragic life of the White House in the 
Civil War. 

This capacity for companionship 
which so linked men of all types to Lin- 
coln in his lifetime and so held them to 
him in death is one clue to his final suc- 
cess in bringing out of the struggle over 
slavery in this country certain solid and 
definite results — results that have en- 
larged the boundaries of human free- 
dom and given a convincing demon- 
stration of the need and the preciousness 
of more and more unionism if we are to 
secure our final better world. He could 
XV 



INTRODUCTION 

not have done what he did had he been 
less understanding of men and their hm- 
itations as well as of their powers, less 
experienced in passing behind human 
walls, finding what there was there and 
using it, not asking of a man what he 
could not give, not forcing on him what 
he could not receive. 

Who can estimate what i't was to the 
nation to have as a leader through the 
Civil War a man "born with a pass-key 
to hearts." 

Ida M. Tarbell. 



XVI 



CONTENTS 








PAGE 


He Knew Lincoln . 


• • 


3 


Back in '58 


• • 


43 


Father Abraham . 


• • 


. 87 


In Lincoln's Chair 


• • 


. 127 



XVII 



LIST OF II/LUSTRATIONS 



Facing 
yage 



se 



Come and set by the stove by the hour and 
tell stories and talk and argue '* . . . 4 

^'Horace Greeley, he caTne in here to buy 

quinine " 16 

*'Aunt Sally, you coiddnH a done nuthin' 

which would have pleased me better " 18 

*'He just talked to us that time out of his 

heart'* .24 

"You're actin* like a lot of cowards. 
You've helped make this war, and 
you've got to help fight it" .... 26 

**We vjent out on the back sto>yp and sat down 

and talked and talked " 30 



XIX 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 



He has the pass-key to hearts, to him the 

response of the prying of hands on the knobs." 
— Walt Whitman's ^'Song of the Answerer,' 



D 



6 i -^ — >^ ID I know Lincoln ? Well, 
I should say. See that 
chair there? Take it, set 
down. That's right. Comfortable, 
ain't it.? Well, sir, Abraham Lincoln 
has set in that chair hours, him and 
Little 'Doug,' and Logan and Judge 
Davis, all of 'em, all the big men in this 
State, set in that chair. See them marks ? 
Whittlin'. Judge Logan did it, all-firedest 
man to whittle. Always cuttin' away at 
something. I just got that chair new, paid 
six dollars for it, and I be blamed if I 
didn't come in this store and find him 
slashin' right into that arm. I picked up 
a stick and said: *IIere, Judge, s'posin' 
you cut this.' He just looked at me and 
3 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
then flounced out, mad as a wet hen. 
Mr. Lincohi was here, and you ought to 
heard him tee-hee. He was always here. 
Come and set by the stove by the hour 
and tell stories and talk and argue. I'd 
ruther heard the debates them men had 
around this old stove than heard Webster 
and Clay and Calhoun and the whole 
United States Senate. There wa'n't never 
a United States Senate that could beat 
just what I've heard right here in this 
room with Lincoln settin' in that very 
chair where you are this minute. 

" He traded here. I've got his accounts 
now. See here, 'quinine, quinine, quinine.' 
Greatest hand to buy quinine you ever 
see. Give it to his constituents. Oh, he 
knew how to be popular, Mr. Lincoln did. 
Cutest man in politics. I wa'n't a Whig. 
I was then and I am now a Democrat, a 
real old-fashioned Jackson Democrat, and 
4 




Come and set by the stove hy the hour and tell stories and 
talk and arque " 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
my blood just would rise up sometimes 
hearin' him discuss. He was a dangerous 
man — a durned dangerous man to have 
agin you. He'd make you think a thing 
when you knew it wa'n't so, and cute! 
Why, he'd just slide in when you wa'n't 
expectin' it and do some unexpected 
thing that u'd make you laugh, and 
then he'd get your vote. You'd vote for 
him because you liked him — just be- 
cause you liked him and because he was 
so all-fired smart, and do it when you 
knew he was wrong and it was agin the 
interest of the country. 

" Tell stories ? Nobody ever could beat 
him at that, and how he'd enjoy 'em, just 
slap his hands on his knees and jump up 
and turn around and then set down, 
laughin' to kill. Greatest man to git new 
yarns that ever lived, always askin', 
' Heard any new stories, Billy ? ' And if 
5 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
I had I'd trot 'em out, and how he'd 
laugh. Often and often when I've told 
him something new and he'd kin' a forgit 
how it went, he'd come in and say, ' Billy, 
how about that story you'se tellin' me?' 
and then I'd tell it all over. 

" He was away a lot, you know, ridin' 
the circuit along with some right smart 
lawyers. They had great doin's. Nuthin' 
to do evenings but to set around the 
tavern stove tellin' stories. That was 
enough when Lincoln was there. They 
was all lost without him. Old Judge Davis 
was boss of that lot, and he never would 
settle down till Lincoln got around. I've 
heard 'em laugh lots of times how the 
Judge would fuss around and keep askin', 
'Where's Mr. Lincoln, why don't Mr. 
Lincoln come ? Somebody go and find 
Lincoln,' and when Lincoln came he 
would just settle back and get him started 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
to yarning, and there they'd set half the 
night. 

" When he got home he'd come right in 
here first time he was downtown and tell 
me every blamed yarn he'd heard. Whole 
crowd would get in here sometimes and 
talk over the trip, and I tell you it was 
something to hear 'em laugh. You could 
tell how Lincoln kept things stirred up. 
He was so blamed quick. Ever hear Judge 
Weldon tell that story about what Lin- 
coln said one day up to Bloomington 
when they was takin' up a subscription 
to buy Jim Wheeler a new pair of pants ? 
No ? Well, perhaps I oughten to tell it to 
you, ma says it ain't nice. It makes me 
mad to hear people objectin' to Mr. 
Lincoln's stories. Mebbe he did say 
words you wouldn't expect to hear at a 
church supper, but he never put no mean- 
in' into 'em that wouldn't 'a' been fit for 
7 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
the minister to put into a sermon, and 
that's a blamed sight more'n you can say 
of a lot of stories I've heard some of the 
people tell who stick up their noses at 
Mr. Lincoln's yarns. 

"Yes, sir, he used to keep things purty 
well stirred up on that circuit. That time 
I was a speakin' of he made Judge Davis 
real mad; it happened right in court and 
everybody got to gigglin' fit to kill. The 
Judge knew 'twas something Lincoln 
had said and he began to sputter. 

"'I am not going to stand this any 
longer, Mr. Lincoln, you're always dis- 
turbin' this court with your tomfoolery. 
I'm goin' to fine you. The clerk will fine 
Mr. Lincoln five dollars for disorderly 
conduct.' The boys said Lincoln never 
said a word; he just set lookin' down with 
his hand over his mouth, tryin' not to 
laugh. About a minute later the Judge, 
8 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
who was always on pins and needles till 
he knew all the fun that was goin' on, 
called up Weldon and whispered to him, 
' What was that Lincoln said ? ' Weldon 
told him, and I'll be blamed if the Judge 
didn't giggle right out loud there in court. 
The joke was on him then, and he knew 
it, and soon as he got his face straight he 
said, dignified like, ' The clerk may remit 
Mr. Lincoln's fine.' 

" Yes, he was a mighty cute story-teller, 
but he knew what he was about tellin' 
'em. I tell you he got more arguments out 
of stories than he did out of law books, 
and the queer part was you couldn't 
answer 'em — they just made you see it 
and you couldn't get around it. I'm a 
Democrat, but I'll be blamed if I didn't 
have to vote for Mr. Lincoln as President, 
couldn't help it, and it was all on account 
of that snake story of his'n illustratin' 
9 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
the takin' of slavery into Kansas and Ne- 
braska. Remember it ? I heard him tell 
it in a speech once. 

"'If I saw a pizen snake crawlin' in 
the road/ he says, 'I'd kill it with the 
first thing I could grab ; but if I found it 
in bed with my children, I'd be mighty 
careful how I touched it fear I'd make it 
bite the children. If I found it in bed with 
somebody else's children I'd let them 
take care of it; but if I found somebody 
puttin' a whole batch of young snakes 
into an empty bed where mine or any- 
body's children was going to sleep pretty 
soon, I'd stop him from doin' it if I had 
to fight him.' Perhaps he didn't say ' fight 
him,' but somehow I always tell that 
story that way because I know I would 
and so would he or you or anybody. That 
was what it was all about Y/hen you come 
down to it. They was tryin' to put a batch 
10 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
of snakes into an empty bed that folks 
was goin' to sleep in. 

"Before I heard that story I'd heard 
Lincoln say a hundred times, settin' right 
there in that chair, where you are, ' Boys, 
we've got to stop slavery or it's goin' to 
spread all over this country,' but, some- 
how, I didn't see it before. Them snakes 
finished me. Then I knew he'd got it right 
and I'd got to vote for him. Pretty tough, 
though, for me to go back on Little 
'Doug.' You see he was our great man, 
so we thought. Been to the United States 
Senate and knew all the big bugs all over 
the country. Sort o' looked and talked 
great. Wan't no comparison between him 
and Lincoln in looks and talk. Of course, 
we all knewhe wa'n't honest, like Lincoln, 
but blamed if I didn't think in them days 
Lincoln was too all-fired honest — kind 
of innocent honest. He couldn't stand it 
11 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
nohow to have things said that wan't so. 
He just felt plumb bad about lies. I re- 
member once bein' in court over to De- 
catur when Mr. Lincoln was tryin' a case. 
There was a fellow agin him that didn't 
have no prejudices against lyin' in a law- 
suit, and he was tellin' how Lincoln had 
said this an' that, tryin' to mix up the 
jury. It was snowin' bad outside, and Mr. 
Lincoln had wet his feet and he was tryin' 
to dry 'em at the stove. He had pulled off 
one shoe and was settin' there holdin' up 
his great big foot, his forehead all puck- 
ered up, listenin' to that ornery lawyer's 
lies. All at onct he jumped up and hopped 
right out into the middle of the court- 
room. 

"'Now, Judge,' he says, 'that ain't 
fair. I didn't say no sich thing, and he 
knows I didn't. I ain't goin' to have this 
jury all fuddled up.' 
12 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
"You never see anything so funny in a 
court-room as that big fellow standin' 
there in one stockin' foot, a shoe in his 
hand, talking so earnest. No, sir, he 
couldn't stand a lie. 

"'Think he was a big man, then.?' 
Nope — never did. Just as I said, we all 
thought Douglas was our big man. You 
know I felt kind of sorry for Lincoln 
when they began to talk about him for 
President. It seemed almost as if some- 
body was makin' fun of him. He didn't 
look like a president. I never had seen 
one, but we had pictures of 'em, all of 
'em from George Washington down, and 
they looked somehow as if they were dif- 
ferent kind of timber from us. Leastwise 
that's always the way it struck me. Now 
Mr. Lincoln he was just like your own 
folks — no trouble to talk to him, no 
siree. Somehow you just settled down 
13 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
comfortable to visitln' the minute he come 
in. I couldn't imagine George Washing- 
ton or Thomas Jefferson settin' here in 
that chair you're in tee-heein' over some 
blamed yarn of mine. None of us around 
town took much stock in his bein' elected 
at first — that is, none of the men, the 
women was different. They always be- 
lieved in him, and used to say, ' You mark 
my word, Mr. Lincoln will be president. 
He's just made for it, he's good, he's the 
best man ever lived and he ought to be 
president.' I didn't see no logic in that 
then, but I dunno but there was some 
after all. 

** It seems all right now though. I reck- 
on I learned somethin' watchin' him be 
President — learned a lot — not that it 
made any difference in him. Funniest 
thing to see him goin' around in this 
town — not a mite changed — and the 
14 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
whole United States a watchin' lilm and 
the biggest men in the country runnin' 
after him and reporters hangin' around 
to talk to him and fellers makin' his pic- 
tures in ile and every other way. That 
didn't make no difference to him — only 
he didn't like bein' so busy he couldn't 
come in here much. He had a room over 
there in the Court House — room on that 
corner there. I never looked up that it 
wa'n't chuck full of people wantin' him. 
This old town was full of people all the 
time — delegations and committees and 
politicians and newspaper men. Only 
time I ever see Horace Greeley, he came 
in here to buy quinine. Mr. Lincoln sent 
him. Think of that, Horace Greeley buy- 
in' quinine of me. 

"No end of other great men around. 
He saw 'em all. Sometimes I used to step 
over and watch him — didn't bother him 
15 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
a mite to see a big man — not a mite. 
He'd jest shake hands and talk as easy 
and natural as if 'twas me — and he 
didn't do no struttin' either. Some of the 
fellers who come to see him looked as if 
they was goin' to be president, but Mr. 
Lincoln didn't put on any airs. No, sir, 
and he didn't cut any of his old friends 
either. Tickled to death to see 'em every 
time, and they all come — blamed if 
every old man and woman in Sangamon 
County didn't trot up here to see him. 
They'd all knowed him when he was 
keepin' store down to New Salem and 
swingin' a chain — surveyed lots of their 
towns for 'em — he had — and then he'd 
electioneered all over that county, too, 
so they just come in droves to bid him 
good-by. I was over there one day when 
old Aunt Sally Lowdy came in the door. 
Aunt Sally lived down near New Salem, 
16 




Horace Greeley, he came in Jiere fa buy quinine " 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
and I expect she'd mended Mr. Lincoln's 
pants many a time; for all them old wo- 
men down there just doted on him and 
took care of him as if he was their own 
boy. Well, Aunt Sally stood lookin' kind 
a scared seein' so many strangers and not 
knowin' precisely what to do, when Mr. 
Lincoln spied her. Quick as a wink he 
said, 'Excuse me, gentlemen,' and he 
just rushed over to that old woman and 
shook hands with both of his'n and says, 
' Now, Aunt Sally, this is real kind of you 
to come and see me. How are you and 
how's Jake .?' (Jake was her boy.) ' Come 
right over here,' and he led her over, as if 
she was the biggest lady in Illinois, and 
says, ' Gentlemen, this is a good old friend 
of mine. She can make the best flapjacks 
you ever tasted, and she's baked 'em for 
me many a time.' Aunt Sally was jest as 
pink as a rosy, she was so tickled. And 
17 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
she says, 'Abe' — all the old folks in 
Sangamon called him Abe. They knowed 
him as a boy, but don't you believe any- 
body ever did up here. No, sir, we said 
Mr. Lincoln. He was like one of us, but 
he wa'n't no man to be over familiar with. 
'Abe,' says Aunt Sally, *I had to come 
and say good-by. They say down our way 
they're goin' to kill you if they get you 
down to Washington, but I don't believe 
it. I just tell 'em you're too smart to let 
'em git ahead of you that way. I thought 
I'd come and bring you a present, knit 
'em myself,' and I'll be blamed if that old 
lady didn't pull out a great big pair of 
yarn socks and hand 'em to Mr. Lincoln. 
" Well, sir, it was the funniest thing to 
see Mr. Lincoln's face pucker up and his 
eyes twinkle and twinkle. He took them 
socks and held 'em up by the toes, one in 
each hand. They was the longest socks I 
18 





/ ./ 






Aunt Sail^, you couldnt a done nut hi n which nould 
have pleased vie better " 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
ever see. *The lady got my latitude and 
longitude 'bout right, didn't she, gentle- 
men ? ' he says, and then he laid 'em 
down and he took Aunt Sally's hand and 
he says tender-like, 'Aunt Sally, you 
couldn't a done nothin' which would 
have pleased me better. I'll take 'em to 
Washington and wear 'em, and think 
of you when I do it.' And I declare he 
said it so first thing I knew I was al- 
most blubberin', and I wan't the only 
one nuther, and I bet he did wear 'em in 
Washington. I can jest see him pullin' 
off his shoe and showin' them socks to 
Sumner or Seward or some other big bug 
that was botherin' him when he wanted 
to switch off on another subject and tellin' 
'em the story about Aunt Sally and her 
flapjacks. 

"'Was there much talk about his bein' 
killed ? ' Well, there's an awful lot of fools 
19 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
in this world and when they don't git what 
they want they're always for killin' some- 
body. Mr. Lincoln never let on, but I 
reckon his mail was pretty lively readin' 
sometimes. He got pictures of gallows 
and pistols and other things and lots of 
threats, so they said. I don't think that 
worried him much. He was more bothered 
seein' old Buchanan givin' the game 
away. 'I wish I could have got down 
there before the horse was stole,' I heard 
him say onct in here, talkin' to some men. 
* But I reckon I can find the tracks when 
I do git there.' It was his cabinet bother- 
ed him most, I always thought. He didn't 
know the men he'd got to take well 
enough. Didn't know how far he could 
count on 'em. He and Judge Gillespie 
and one or two others was in here one 
day sittin' by the stove talkin,' and he 
says, ' Judge, I wisht I could take all you 
20 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
boys down to Washington with me, 
Democrats and all, and make a cabinet 
out of you. I'd know where every man 
would fit and we could git right down to 
work. Now, I've got to learn my men 
before I can do much.' 'Do you mean, 
Mr. Lincoln, you'd take a Democrat like 
Logan ? ' says the Judge, sort of shocked. 
'Yes, sir, I would; I know Logan. He's 
agin me now and that's all right, but if 
we have trouble you can count on Logan 
to do the right thing by the country, 
and that's the kind of men I want — them 
as will do the right thing by the country. 
'Tain't a question of Lincoln, or Demo- 
crat or Republican, Judge; it's a question 
of the country.' 

"Of course he seemed pretty cheerful 

always. He wan't no man to show out all 

he felt. Lots of them little stuck-up chaps 

that came out here to talk to him said, 

21 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
solemn as owls, *He don't realize the 
gravity of the situation.' Them's their 
words, 'gravity of the situation.' Think of 
that, Mr. Lincoln not realizing. They 
ought to heard him talk to us the night he 
went away. I'll never forgit that speech — 
nor any man who heard it. I can see him 
now just how he looked, standin' there on 
the end of his car. He'd been shakin' 
hands with the crowd in the depot, laugh- 
in' and talkin', just like himself, but when 
he got onto that car he seemed suddint 
to be all changed. You never seen a face 
so sad in all the world. I tell you he had 
woe in his heart that minute, woe. He 
knew he was leavin' us for good, nuthin' 
else could explain the way he looked and 
what he said. He knew he never was 
comin' back alive. It was rainin' hard, 
but when we saw him standin' there 
bare headed, his great big eyes lookin' at 
22 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
US so lovin* and mournful, every man of 
us took off his hat, just as if he*d been in 
church. You never heard him make a 
speech, of course ? You missed a lot. 
Curious voice. You could hear it away 
off — kind of shrill, but went right to 
your heart — and that night it sounded 
sadder than anything I ever heard. You 
know I always hear it to this day, nights 
when the wind howls around the house. 
Ma says it makes her nervous to hear me 
talk about him such nights, but I can't 
help it; just have to let out 

" He stood a minute lookin' at us, and 
then he began to talk. There ain't a man 
in this town that heard him that ever for- 
got what he said, but I don't believe 
there's a man that ever said it over out 
loud — he couldn't, without cryin'. He 
just talked to us that time out of his heart. 
Somehow we felt all of a suddint how we 
23 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
loved him and how he loved us. We 
hadn't taken any stock in all that talk 
about his bein' killed, but when he said 
he was goin' away not knowin' where or 
whether ever he would return I just got 
cold all over. I begun to see that minute 
and everybody did. The women all fell to 
sobbin' and a kind of groan went up, and 
when he asked us to pray for him I don't 
believe that there was a man in that 
crowd, whether he ever went to church 
in his life, that didn't want to drop right 
down on his marrow bones and ask the 
Lord to take care of Abraham Lincoln 
and bring him back to us, where he be- 
longed. 

" ' Ever see him again ? ' Yes, onct 
down in Washington, summer of '64. 
Things was lookin' purty blue that sum- 
mer. Didn't seem to be anybody who 
thought he'd git reelected. Greeley was 




He just talked to us that time out of his heart " 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
abusin' him in The Tribune for not mak- 
in' peace, and you know there was about 
half the North that always let Greeley 
do their thinkin' fer 'em. The war wan't 
comin' on at all — seemed as if they never 
would do nuthin'. Grant was hangin' on 
to Petersburg like a dog to a root, but it 
didn't seem to do no good. Same with 
Sherman, who w^as tryin' to take Atlanta. 
The country was just petered out with 
the everlastin' taxes an' fightin' an' dyin'. 
It wa'n't human nature to be patient any 
longer, and they just spit it out on Mr. 
Lincoln, and then, right on top of all the 
grumblin' and abusin', he up and made 
another draft. Course he was right, but I 
tell you nobody but a brave man would 
'a' done such a thing at that minute ; but 
he did it. It was hard on us out here. I 
tell you there wa'n't many houses in this 
country where there wa'n't mournin' goin' 
25 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
on. It didn't seem as if we could stand any 
more blood lettin.' Some of the boys 
round the State went down to see him 
about it. They came back lookln' pretty 
sheepish. Joe Medill, up to Chicago, told 
me about it onct. He said, ' We just told 
Mr. Lincoln we couldn't stand another 
draft. We was through sendin' men down 
to Petersburg to be killed in trenches. He 
didn't say nuthin'; just stood still, lookin' 
down till we'd all talked ourselves out; 
and then, after a while, he lifted up his 
head, and looked around at us, slow-like; 
and I tell you, Billy, I never knew till 
that minute that Abraham Lincoln could 
get mad clean through. He was just white 
he was that mad. "Boys," he says, "you 
ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You're 
actin' like a lot of cowards. You've helped 
make this war, and you've got to help 
fight it. You go home and raise them men 
26 




1^ 



You re adin' like a Jot of cowards. You've helped 
viake fJcis war, and ijou've got to help fiyht it " 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 

and don't you dare come down here again 
blubberin' about what I tell you to do. I 
won't stan' it." We was so scared we 
never said a word. We just took our hats 
and went out like a lot of school-boys. 
Talk about Abraham Lincoln bein' easy ! 
When it didn't matter mebbe he was 
easy, but when it did you couldn't stir 
him any more'n you could a mountain.' 
" Well, I kept hearin' about the trouble 
he was liavin' with everybody, and I jusi 
made up my mind I'd go down and se^ 
him and swap yarns and tell him how we 
was all countin' on his gettin' home. 
Thought maybe it would cheer him up to 
know we set such store on his comin' 
home if they didn't want him for presi- 
dent. So I jest picked up and went right 
off. Ma w^as real good about my goin'. 
She says, ' I shouldn't wonder if 'twould 
do him good, William. And don't you ask 
£7 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
him no questions about the war nor 
about pohtics. You just talk home to him 
and tell him some of them foolish stories 
of yourn.' 

" Well, I had a brother in Washington, 
clerk in a department — awful set up 
'cause he had an office — and when I got 
down there I told him I'd come to visit 
Mr. Lincoln. He says, ' William, be you a 
fool ? Folks don't visit the President of 
the United States without an invitation, 
and he's too busy to see anybody but the 
very biggest people in this administra- 
tion. Why, he don't even see me,' he says. 
Well, it made me huffy to hear him talk. 
' Isaac,' I says, ' I don't wonder Mr. Lin- 
coln don't see you. But it's different with 
me. Him and me is friends.' 

"^Well' he says, 'you've got to have 
cards anyway.' 'Cards,' I says, 'what 
for ? What kind ?' 'Why,' he says, 'visit- 
£8 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
in' cards — with your name on.' 'Well/ 
I says, 'it's come to a pretty pass, if an 
old friend like me can't see Mr. Lincoln 
without sendin' him a piece of paste- 
board. I'd be ashamed to do such a thing, 
Isaac Brown. Do you suppose he's for- 
gotten me ? Needs to see my name printed 
out to know who I am ? You can't make 
me believe any such thing,' and I walked 
right out of the room, and that night I 
footed it up to the Soldiers' Home where 
Mr. Lincoln was livin' then, right among 
the sick soldiers in their tents. 

"There was lots of people settin' 
around in a little room, waitin' fer him, 
but there wan't anybody there I knowed, 
and I was feelin' a little funny when a 
door opened and out came little John 
Nicolay. He came from down this way, 
so I just went up and says, 'Ilow'd you 
do, John; where's Mr Lincoln?' 
29 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
Well, John didn't seem over glad to see 
me. 

" ' Have you an appintment with Mr. 
Lincoln ? ' he says. 

" 'No, sir,' I says; *I ain't, and it ain't 
necessary. Mebbe it's all right and fittin' 
for them as wants post-offices to have 
appintments, but I reckon Mr. Lincoln's 
old friends don't need 'em, so you just 
trot along, Johnnie, and tell him Billy 
Brown's here and see what he says.' Well, 
he kind a flushed up and set his lips to- 
gether, but he knowed me, and so he went 
off. In about two minutes the door popped 
open and out came Mr. Lincoln, his face 
all lit up. He saw me first thing, and he 
laid holt of me and just shook my hands 
fit to kill. 'Billy,' he says, 'now I am 
glad to see you. Come right in. You're 
goin' to stay to supper with Mary and 



me.' 



30 




•• IIV ir,i,l nnf ,,n tin luirl: ..Innp ,iirl sal <l>}trn and ta/Lul 
and talked '" 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
" Didn't I know it ? Think bein' presi- 
dent would change him — not a mite. 
Well, he had a right smart lot of people 
to see, but soon as he was through we 
went out on the back stoop and set down 
and talked and talked. He asked me 
about pretty nigh everybody in Spring- 
field. I just let loose and told him about 
the weddin's and births and the funerals 
and the buildin', and I guess there wan't 
a yarn I'd heard in the three years and a 
half he'd been away that I didn't spin for 
him. Laugh — you ought to a heard him 
laugh — just did my heart good, for I 
could see what they'd been doin' to him. 
Always was a thin man, but, Lordy, he 
was thinner'n ever now, and his face was 
kind a drawn and gray — enough to make 
you cry. 

" Well, we had supper and then talked 
some more, and about ten o'clock I start- 
31 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
ed downtown. Wanted me to stay all 
night, but I says to myseK, 'Billy, don't 
you overdo it. You've cheered him up, 
and you better light out and let him re- 
member it when he's tired.' So I said, 
'Nope, Mr. Lincoln, can't, go in' back to 
Springfield to-morrow. Ma don't like to 
have me away and my boy ain't no great 
shakes keepin' store.' 'Billy,' he says, 
' what did you come down here for ? ' ' I 
come to see you, Mr. Lincoln.' 'But you 
ain't asked me for anything, Billy. What 
is it ? Out with it. Want a post-office ?' 
he said, gigglin', for he knowed I didn't. 
* No, Mr. Lincoln, just wanted to see you 
— felt kind a lonesome — been so long 
since I'd seen you, and I was afraid I'd 
forgit some of them yarns if I didn't un- 
load soon.' 

" Well, sir, you ought to seen his face as 
he looked at me. 

S2 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
"'Billy Brown,' he says, slow-like, 'do 
you mean to tell me you came all the way 
from Springfield, Illinois, just to have a 
visit with me, that you don't want an 
office for anybody, nor a pardon for any- 
body, that you ain't got no complaints in 
your pocket, nor any advice up your 
sleeve ? ' 

"'Yes, sir,' I says, 'that's about it, and 
I'll be dumed if I wouldn't go to Europe 
to see you, if I couldn't do it no other way, 
Mr. Lincoln.' 

"Well, sir, I never was so astonished 
in my life. He just grabbed my hand and 
shook it nearly off, and the tears just 
poured down his face, and he says, ' Billy, 
you never'll know what good you've done 
me. I'm homesick, Billy, just plumb 
homesick, and it seems as if this war 
never would be over. Many a night I can 
see the boys a-dyin' on the fields and can 
33 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
hear their mothers cryin' for 'em at home, 
and I can't help 'em, Billy. I have to send 
them down there. We've got to save the 
Union, Billy, we've got to.' 

"'Course we have, Mr. Lincoln,' I 
says, cheerful as I could, ' course we have. 
Don't you worry. It's most over. You're 
goin' to be reelected, and you and old 
Grant's goin' to finish this war mighty 
quick then. Just keep a stiff upper lip, 
Mr. Lincoln, and don't forget them yarns 
I told you.' And I started out. But seems 
as if he couldn't let me go. ' Wait a min- 
ute, Billy,' he says, ' till I get my hat and 
I'll walk a piece with you.' It was one of 
them still sweet-smellin' summer nights 
with no end of stars and you ain't no idee 
how pretty 'twas walkin' down the road. 
There was white tents showin' through 
the trees and every little way a tall soldier 
standin' stock still, a gun at his side. 
34 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
Made me feel mighty curious and solemn. 
By-and-by we come out of the trees to a 
sightly place where you could look all 
over Washington — see the Potomac and 
clean into Virginia. There was a bench 
there and we set down and after a while 
Mr. Lincoln he begun to talk. Well, sir, 
you or nobody ever heard anything like 
it. Blamed if he didn't tell me the whole 
thing — all about the war and the gener- 
als and Seward and Sumner and Con- 
gress and Greeley and the whole blamed 
lot. He just opened up his heart if I do 
say it. Seemed as if he'd come to a p'int 
where he must let out. I dunno how long 
we set there — must have been nigh 
morning, fer the stars begun to go out 
before he got up to go. * Gk)od-by, Billy,' 
he says. ' you're the first person I ever 
unloaded onto, and I hope you won't 
think I'm a baby,' and then we shook 
35 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
hands again, and I walked down to town 
and next day I come home. 

" Tell you what he said ? Nope, I can't. 
Can't talk about it somehow. Fact is, I 
never told anybody about what he said 
that night. Tried to tell ma onct, but she 
cried, so I give it up. 

" Yes, that's the last time I seen him — 
last time alive. 

" Wa'n't long after that things began to 
look better. War began to move right 
smart, and, soon as it did, there wa'n't no 
use talkin' about anybody else for Presi- 
dent. I see that plain enough, and, just as 
I told him, he was reelected, and him an' 
Grant finished up the war in a hurry. I 
tell you it was a great day out here when 
we heard Lee had surrendered. 'Twas 
just like gettin' converted to have the war 
over. Somehow the only thing I could 
think of was how glad Mr. Lincoln would 
S6 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
be. Me and ma reckoned he'd come 
right out and make us a visit and get 
rested, and we began right off to make 
plans about the reception we'd give 
j^im — brass band — parade — speeches 
fireworks — everything. Seems as if I 
couldn't think about anything else. I was 
comin' down to open the store one mor- 
nin', and all the way down I was plannin' 
how I'd decorate the windows and how 
I'd tie a flag on that old chair, when I see 
Hiram Jones comin' toward me. He 
looked so old and all bent over I didn't 
know what had happened. * Hiram,' I 
says, 'what's the matter? Be you 
sick ? ' 

" ' Billy,' he says, and he couldn't hard- 
ly say it, * Billy, they've killed Mr. Lin- 
coln.' 

"Well, I just turned cold all over, and 
then I flared up. * Hiram Jones,' I says, 
37 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
* you're lyin,' you're crazy. How dare you 
tell me that ? It ain't so.' 

" ' Don't Billy,' he says, * don't go on so. 
I ain't lyin'. It's so. He'll never come 
back, Billy. He's dead!' And he fell to 
sobbin' out loud right there in the street, 
and somehow I knew it was true. 

" I come on down and opened the door. 
People must have paregoric and castor 
ile and liniment, no matter who dies ; but 
I didn't put up the shades. I just sat here 
and thought and thought and groaned 
and groaned. It seemed that day as if the 
country was plumb ruined and I didn't 
care much. All I could think of was him. 
He wan't goin' to come back. He wouldn't 
never sit here in that chair again. He was 
dead. 

"For days and days 'twas awful here. 
Waitin' and waitin'. Seemed as if that 
funeral never would end. I couldn't bear 
38 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
to think of him bein' dragged around the 
country and havin' all that fuss made over 
him. He always hated fussin' so. Still, I 
s'pose I'd been mad if they hadn't done it. 
Seemed awful, though. I kind a felt that 
he belonged to us now, that they ought to 
bring him back and let us have him now 
they'd killed him. 

*' Of course they got here at last, and I 
must say it was pretty grand. All sorts 
of big bugs. Senators and Congress- 
men, and officers in grand uniforms and 
music and flags and crape. They certainly 
didn't spare no pains givin' him a funeral. 
Only we didn't want 'em. We wanted to 
bury him ourselves, but they wouldn't 
let us. I went over onct where they'd laid 
him out for folks to see. I reckon I won't 
tell you about that. I ain't never goin' to 
get that out of my mind. I wisht a million 
times I'd never seen him lyin' there black 
39 



HE KNEW LINCOLN 
and changed — that I could only see him 
as he looked sayin' 'good-by' to me up 
to the Soldiers' Home in Washington 
that night. 

" Ma and me didn't go to the cemetery 
with 'em. I couldn't stan' it. Didn't seem 
right to have sich goin's on here at home 
where he belonged, for a man like him. 
But we go up often now, ma and me does, 
and talk about him. Blamed if it don't 
seem sometimes as if he was right there 
— might step out any minute and say 
* Hello, Billy, any new stories ? ' 

"Yes. I knowed Abraham Lincoln; 
knowed him well; and I tell you there 
wan't never a better man made. Least- 
wise I don't want to know a better one. 
He just suited me — Abraham Lincoln 
did." 



40 



BACK IN '58 



BACK THERE IN '58 

Hear 'em? Hear the Lincoln and 
Douglas debates? Well, I should say I 
did. Heard every one of 'em. Yes, sir, 
for about two months back there in '58, 
I didn't do a thing but travel around Il- 
linois listenin' to them two men argue out 
slavery; and ^^jhen I wa'n't listenin' to 
'em or travelin' around after 'em, I was 
pretty sure to be settin' on a fence dis- 
cussin'. Fur my part I never did under- 
stand how the crops was got in that fall ; 
seemed to me about all the men in the 
state was settin' around whittlin' and dis- 
cussin'. 

Made Lincoln? Yes, I reckon you 
might say they did. There's no denyin' 
that's when the country outside begun to 
43 



BACK THERE IN '58 

take notice of him. But don't you make 
no mistake, them debates wa'n't the be- 
ginnin' of Abraham. Lincoln's work on 
slavery. He'd been at it for about four 
years before they come off, sweatin' his 
brains night and day. The hardest piece 
of thinkin' I ever see a man do. Anybody 
that wants to hear about him back there 
needn't expect stories. He wa'n't tellin' 
stories them days. No, sir, he was 
thinkin'. 

Curious about him. There he was, 
more'n forty-five years old, clean out of 
politics and settled down to practice law. 
Looked as if he wouldn't do much of 
anything the rest of his life but jog 
around the circuit, when all of a suddint 
Douglas sprung his Kansas-Nebraska 
bill. You remember what that bill was, 
don't you? — ^let Kansas and Nebraska in 
as territories and the same time repealed 
the Missouri Compromise keeping slav- 



BACK THERE IN '58 

ery out of that part of the country, let 
the people have it or not, just as they 
wanted. You ain't no idee how that bill 
stirred up Mr. Lincoln. I'll never forgit 
how he took its passin'. 'Twas long back 
in the spring of '54. Lot of 'em was set- 
tin' in here tellin' stories and ^Ir. Lincoln 
was right in the middle of one when in 
bounced Billy Herndon — he was Lin- 
coln's law partner, you know. His eyes 
w^as blazin' and he calls out, "They've up- 
set the JMissouri Compromise. The Kan- 
sas-Nebraska bill is passed." 

For a minute everybody was still as 
death — everybody but me. "Hoorah!" I 
calls out, "you can bet on Little Dug 
every time," for I was a Democrat and, 
barrin' George Washington and Thomas 
JeiFerson, I thought Douglas was the 
biggest man God ever made. Didn't 
know no more what that bill meant than 
that old Tom-cat in the window. 

45 



BACK THERE IN '58 

"Hoorah!" I says, and then I hap- 
pened to look at Mr. Lincoln. 

He was all in a heap, his head dropped 
down on his breast, and there he set and 
never spoke, and then after a long time 
he got up and went out. Never finished 
that story, never said "Good-by, boys," 
like he always did, never took notice of 
nuthin', just went out, his face gray and 
stern, and his eyes not seein' at all. 

Well, sir, you could 'a' knocked me 
over with a feather. I never seen him take 
anything that way before. He was a good 
loser. You see how 'twas with me, Kan- 
sas-Nebraska wa'n't nuthin' but politics, 
and my man had beat. 

I told Ma about it when I got home. 
"It ain't like him to be mad because 
Douglas has beat," I says, "I don't 
understand it," and Ma says, "I 
reckon that's just it, William, you 
don't understand it." Ma was awful 
46 



BACK THERE IN '58 

touchy when anybody seemed to criticise 
Mr. Lincoln. 

I s'pose you're too young to recollect 
what a fuss that bill stirred up, ain't you? 
Must 'a' heard your Pa talk about it, 
though. Whole North got to rowin' 
about it. Out here in Illinois lots of 
Democrats left the party on account of it, 
and when Douglas came back that sum- 
mer they hooted him off a platform up 
to Chicago. You couldn't stop Douglas 
that way. That just stirred up his blood. 

Par's I was concerned I couldn't see 
SLuythmg the matter with what he'd done. 
It seemed all right to me them days to let 
the folks that moved into Kansas and 
Nebraska do as Douglas had fixed it for 
'em, have slaves or not, just as they was 
a mind to. And I tell you, when Douglas 
came around here and talked about "pop- 
ular sovereignty," and rolled out his big 
sentences about the sacred right of self- 
47 



BACK THERE IN '58 

government, and said that if the white 
people in Nebraska was good enough to 
govern themselves, they was good enough 
to govern niggers, I felt dead sure there 
wa'n't no other side to it. 

What bothered me was the way Mr. 
Lincoln kept on takin' it. He got so he 
wa'n't the same, 'peared to be in a brown 
study all the time. Come in here and set 
by the stove with the boys and not talk 
at all. Didn't seem to relish my yarns 
either like he used to. He started in cam- 
paigning again, right away, and the boys 
said he wouldn't promise to go any place 
where they didn't let him speak against 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill. I heard him 
down here that fall — his first big speech. 
I hadn't never had any idee what was in 
Abraham Lincoln before. He«wa'n't the 
same man at all. Serious — ^you wouldn't 
believe it, seemed to feel plumb bad about 
repealin' the Missouri Compromise, said 

48 



BACK THERE IN '58 

'twas wrong, just as wrong as 'twould be 
to repeal the law against bringing in 
slaves from Africa. I must say I hadn't 
thought of that before. 

I remember some of the things he said 
about Douglas' idee of popular sover- 
eignty, just as well as if 'twas yesterday. 
"When the white man governs himself," 
he said, "that is self-government; but 
when he governs himself and also gov- 
erns another, that is more than self-gov- 
ernment, that is despotism." "If the 
negro is a man, then my ancient faith 
teaches me that all men are created 
equal." "No man is good enough to 
govern another man without that other's 
consent." 

And he just lit into slavery that day. 
"I hate it," he said. "I hate it because it 
is a monstrous injustice." Yes, sir, them's 
the very words he used way back there in 
'54. "I hate it because it makes the ene- 
49 



BACK THERE IN '58 

mies of free institutions call us hypo- 
crites, I hate it because it makes men cri- 
ticise the Declaration of Independence, 
and say there ain't no right principle but 
self-interest." More'n one old abolition- 
ist who heard that speech said that they 
hadn't no idee how bad slavery was or 
how wicked the Kansas-Nebraska bill 
was 'til then. 

As time went on, seemed as if he got 
more serious every day. Everybody got 
to noticin' how hard he was takin' it. I 
remember how Judge Dickey was in here 
one day and he says to me, "Billy, Mr. 
Lincoln is all used up over this Kansas- 
Nebraska business. If he don't stop wor- 
ryin' so, he'll be sick. Why, t'other night 
up to Bloomington, four of us was sleep- 
in' in the same room and Lincoln talked 
us all to sleep, and what do you think? I 
waked up about daylight and there he 
was settin' on the side of the bed with 

50 



BACK THERE IN '58 

nuthin' on but his shirt, and when he see 
my eyes was open he sings out, *I tell 
you. Judge, this country can't last much 
longer half -slave and half -free.' Bin 
thinkin' all night far's I know." 

Now, sir, that was much as three years 
before JNIr. Lincoln said them self -same 
words in a speech right in this town. 
Seems to me I can hear him now singin' 
it out shrill and far-soundin'. "A house 
divided against itself cannot stand. I be- 
lieve this government cannot endure per- 
manently half -slave and half -free. I do 
not expect the house to fall — but I do ex- 
pect it will cease to be divided. It will be- 
come all the one thing or all the other." 
Them's his very words. It made me cold 
when I heard 'em. If we wa'n't goin' to 
git on half-slave and half- free like we'd 
always done, what was goin' to happen? 

He hitched on another idee to this one 
about our becomin' all slave or all free, 

51 



BACK THERE IN '58 

which bothered me considerable — that 
was, that Douglas and Buchanan and the 
rest of the big Democrats was in a con- 
spiracy to spread slavery all over the 
Union. He'd been sayin' right along that 
they didn't mind slavery spreadin', but 
now he came out flat-footed and said the 
things they'd been doin' in Congress and 
in the Supreme Court for a few years 
back showed that they was tryin' to legal- 
ize slavery in all the states, north and 
south, old and new. He said that the re- 
peal of the Missouri Compromise and 
Judge Taney's decision that Congress 
couldn't keep slaves out of a territory — 
and the way Pierce and Buchanan had 
worked, fitted together like timbers for a 
house. "If you see a lot of timbers," he 
says, "all gotten out at different times 
and different places by Stephen, Frank- 
lin, Roger and James" — them was the 
names of Douglas, Pierce, Taney and 

52 



BACK THERE IN '5 8 

Buchanan, you know — "and you find 
they fit into a frame for a house, you 
can't help believing them men have been 
workin' on the same plan." 

I tell you that speech riled his party. 
They said he oughtn't said it, if he did 
think it. It was too radical. They talked 
to him so much, tryin' to tone him down 
and to keep him from doin' it ag'in, that 
he flared up one day in here and he says, 
*'Boys, if I had to take a pen and scratch 
out every speech I ever made except 
one, this speech you don't like's the 
one I'd leave." And he says it with 
his head up, lookin' as proud as if he 
was a Senator. 

Well, somehow, as time went on, just 
watchin' ^Ir. Lincoln so dead in earnest 
begun to make me feel queer. And I got 
serious. Never'd been so but twict before 
in my life — once at a revival and next 
time when I thought I wasn't goin' to git 
53 



BACK THERE IN '58 

Ma. But I joined the church and Ma and 
me got married, and after that there 
didn't seem to be anything left to worry- 
about. 

And then this comes along, and I'll be 
blamed if it didn't git so I couldn't hear 
enough of it. Night after night, when 
they was in here discussin', every minute 
I wa'n't puttin' up something, I was lis- 
tenin' to 'em. 

And then I took to runnin' around to 
hear the speeches. I was up to Bloom- 
ington in '56 the time Lincoln went over 
to the Republicans. The old Whigs down 
here had been considerable worried for 
fear he would quit 'em, and I must say it 
worried. I never'd had any use for a man 
who left his party. Couldn't understand 
it. Seemed to me then that 'twa'n't no 
better than gittin' a divorce from your 
wife. I've changed my views since about 
several things. Had to jump the party 

54 



BACK T PI ERE IN '58 

myself two or three times, and I've seen 
women — Well, all I've got to say is, that 
I ain't judgin' the man that gits a divorce 
from 'em. 

As I was sayin', I was up to Bloom- 
ington that night. Nobody that didn't 
hear that speech ever knows what Abra- 
ham Lincoln could do. Lots of 'em will 
tell you he was homely. Seems to me 
sometimes that's about all some folks 
around here has to tell about Abraham 
Lincoln. "Yes, I knowed him," they say. 
"He w^as the homeliest man in Sangamon 
Countj^" Well, now, don't you make no 
mistake. The folks that don't tell you 
nuthin' but that never knowed INIr. Lin- 
coln. JNIebbe they'd seen him, but they 
never knowed him. He wa'n't homely. 
There's no denyin' he was long and lean, 
and he didn't always stand straight and 
he wasn't pertikeler about his clothes, 
but that night up to Bloomington in ten 
55 



BACK THERE IN '58 

minutes after he struck that platform, I 
tell you he was the handsomest man I 
ever see. 

He knew what he was doin' that night. 
He knew he was cuttin' loose. He knew 
them old Whigs was goin' to have it in 
for him for doin' it, and he meant to show 
'em he didn't care a red cent what they 
thought. He knew there was a lot of 
fools in that new party he was joinin' — 
the kind that's always takin' up with 
every new thing comes along to git some- 
thing to orate about. He saw clear as day 
that if they got started right that night, 
he'd got to fire 'em up; and so he threw 
back his shoulders and lit in. 

Good Lord ! I never see anything like 
it. In ten minutes he was about eight feet 
tall ; his face was white, his eyes was blaz- 
in' fire, and he was thunder in', "Kansas 
shall be free!" "Ballots, not bullets!" 
"We won't go out of the Union and you 
56 



BACK THERE IN '58 

sha'n't!" Generally when he was speak- 
in', he was cool and quiet and things all 
fit together, and when you come away 
you was calm — but your head was work- 
in'; but that time up to Bloomington he 
was like — what's that the Bible calls it? 
— "avengin' fire" — yes, sir, that's it, he 
was like "avengin' fire." I never knew 
exactly what did happen there. All I 
recollect is that at the beginnin' of that 
speech I was settin' in the back of the 
room, and when I come to I was hangin' 
on to the front of the platform. I recol- 
lect I looked up and seen Jo Medill 
standin' on the reporter's table lookin' 
foolish-like and heard him say: "Good 
Lord, boys, I ain't took a note!" 

Fact was he'd stampeded that audi- 
ence, reporters and all. I've always 
thought that speech made the Republi- 
can party in Illinois. It melted 'em to- 
gether. 'Twa'n't arguments they needed 
57 



BACK THERE IN '58 

just then, it was meltin' together of what 
they'd heard. 

Well, he went right on speakin' after 
that, must 'a' made forty or fifty speeches 
all over the State, for Fremont, and 
he got no end of invitations from Indiana 
and Iowa and Kansas and all around to 
come over and speak. Old Billy Hern- 
don used to come in here and brag about 
it. You'd thought 'twas him was gittin' 
'em. Always seemed to think he owned 
Lincoln anyway. 

By the time the Republicans wanted a 
man for United States Senate Lincoln 
was first choice, easy enough, and the first 
thing anybody knew if he didn't up and 
challenge Douglas, who the Democrats 
was runnin', to seven debates — seven 
joint debates, they called 'em. You could 
'a' knocked me over with a feather when 
I heard that. I couldn't think of anybody 
I knew challengin' Mr. Douglas. It 
58 



BACK THERE IN '58 

seemed impertinent, him bein' what I 
thought him. But I was glad they Avas 
goin' to thresh it out. You see I was feel- 
in' mighty uncertain in my mind by this 
time. Somehow I couldn't seem to git 
around the p'ints I'd been hearin' Mr. 
Lincoln make so much. However, I 
didn't have no idee but w^hat Mr. Doug- 
las would show clear enough where he 
was wrong. So when I heard about 
the debates, I says to Ma, "Johnnie 
can take care of the store, I'm goin' 
to hear 'em ." 

You ain't no idee how people was 
stirred up by the news. Seemed as if 
everybodj^ in the State felt about as I did. 
Most everybody was prettj^ sober about 
it, too. There ain't no denyin' that there 
was a lot of Democrats just like me. 
What ]Mr. Lincoln had been sayin' for 
four years back had struck in and they 
was worried. Still I reckon the most of 
59 



BACK THERE IN '58 

the Republicans was a blamed sight more 
uneasy than we was. They'd got so used 
to seein' Douglas git everything he went 
after, that they thought he'd be sure to 
lick Lincoln now. I heard 'em talkin' 
about it among themselves every now and 
then and sayin, ''I wisht Lincoln hadn't 
done it. He ain't had experience like 
Douglas. Why, Douglas's been debatin' 
fer twelve years in the United States 
Senate with the biggest men in the coun- 
try, and he's always come out ahead. 
Lincoln ain't got a show." 

You needn't think JMr. Lincoln didn't 
know how they was talkin'. He never 
made no mistake about himself, Mr. Lin- 
coln didn't. He knew he wa'n't a big gun 
like Douglas. I could see he was blue as 
a whetstone sometimes, thinkin' of the 
difference between 'em. "What's ag'in 
us in this campaign, boys," I heard him 
say one day, "is me. There ain't no use 
60 



BACK THERE IN '58 

denyin' that Douglas has always been a 
big success and I've always been a flat 
failure. Everybody expects him to be 
President and always has and is actin' 
accordin'. Nobody's ever expected any- 
thing from me. I tell you we've got to 
run this campaign on principle. There 
ain't nuthin' in your candidate." And he 
looked so cast down I felt plum sorry for 
him. 

But you needn't think by that that he 
was shirkin' it — no, sir, not a mite. Spite 
of all his blues, he'd set his teeth for a 
fight. One day over to the Chenery 
House I recollect standin' with tw^o or 
three Republicans w^hen Mr, Lincoln 
come along and stopped to shake hands 
^^dth a chap from up to Danville. "How's 
things lookin' up your way, Judge?" he 
says. 

"Well, Mr. Lincoln," the Judge says, 
"we're feelin' mighty anxious about this 
61 



BACK THERE IN '58 

debate of yourn with Douglas/' and the 
way he said it I could 'a' kicked him. 

Mr. Lincoln looked at him mighty 
sober for a minute. "Judge," he says, 
"didn't you ever see two men gittin' 
ready for a fight? Ain't you seen one of 
'em swell up his muscle and pat it and 
brag how he's goin' to knock the stuffin' 
out of the other, and that other man 
clinchin' his fist and settin' his teeth and 
savin' his wind. Well, sir, the other is 
goin' to win the fight or die tryin'," and 
with that he turns and goes off. 

Didn't I know that's the way he felt. 
I hadn't been watchin' him sweatin' his 
brains on that darned question for four 
years without knowin'. I tell you nobody 
that didn't see him often them days, and 
didn't care enough about him to feel bad 
when he felt bad, can ever understand 
what Abraham Lincoln went through 
before his debates with Douglas. He 
62 



BACK THERE IN '58 

worked his head day and night tryin' to 
git that slavery question figured out so 
nobody could stump him. Greatest man 
to think things out so nobody could git 
around him I ever see. Hadn't any pa- 
tience with what wa'n't clear. What w^or- 
ried him most, I can see now, was makin' 
the rest of us understand it like he did. 

Well, as I was sayin', it seemed as if 
all Illinois turned out to hear 'em speak. 
A country fair wa'n't nuthin' to the 
crowds. There wa'n't any too many rail- 
roads in Illinois in '58, and they didn't 
select the places fur the debates accordin' 
to connections. I reckon I traveled about 
all the ways there be gettin' to the places : 
foot, horseback, canal-boat, stage, side- 
wheeler, just got around any way that 
come handy ; et and slept the same. Up 
to Quincy I recollect I put up on the 
bluff, and over to Charlestown me and 
seven of the boys had two beds. Nobody 
63 



BACK THERE IN '58 

seemed to mind. We was all too took up 
with the speeches, seemed as if the more 
you heard the more you wanted to hear. 
I tell you they don't have no such 
speeches nowadays. There ain't two men 
in the United States today could git the 
crowds them two men had or hold 'em if 
they got 'em. 

I sort of expected some new line of 
argument from Douglas when they 
started out, but 'twa'n't long before we 
all saw he wa'n't goin' to talk about any- 
thing but popular sovereignty — that is, if 
he could help himself. As it turned out he 
didn't git his way. Mr. Lincoln had made 
up his mind that the Judge had got to say 
whether he thought slavery was right or 
wrong. Accordin' to him, that was the 
issue of the campaign. He argued that 
Douglas' notion of popular sovereignty 
was all right if slavery was as good as 
freedom, but that if it wa'n't, his argu- 
64 



BACK THERE IN '58 
ments wa'n't worth a rush. He said the 
difference between him and the Judge 
was that one thought slavery was wrong 
and ought to be kept where it was till it 
died out of itself, and the other thought 
it was right and ought to be spread all 
over the country. 

It made Little Dug awful mad to face 
that line of argument. He said such talk 
proved Lincoln was an abohtionist, and 
as for his bein' in a conspiracy to spread 
slavery it was a lie, "an infamous lie." 
Well, I always did think conspiracy was 
a pretty strong word for Lincoln to use. 
Strictly speakin', I reckon 'twa'n't one, 
but all the same it didn't look right 
Douglas couldn't deny that when he got 
the Missouri Compromise repealed he 
let slaveiy into territory that the govern- 
ment had set aside to be free. He couldn't 
deny that Judge Taney had decided that 
Congress couldn't prevent people taldn' 
65 



BACK THERE IN *58 

slaves into this territory. There was some 
other things which fitted in with these 
which Douglas couldn't deny. 

Mr. Lincoln argued from what they'd 
done that there wa'n't any reason why 
they shouldn't go on and apply the same 
legislation to all the other free parts of 
the country, said he believed they would 
in time if they thought it would pay 
better. 

The more I heard 'em argue the more 
I felt Lincoln was right. Suppose, . I 
says to myself, that they take it into their 
heads to open Illinois? What's to stop 
'em? If slaves can be took into Nebraska 
by the divine right of self-government, 
what's to prevent the divine right of self- 
government lettin' 'em in here? Of 
course, there was an old law settin' aside 
the Northwest to freedom, but if the Mis- 
souri Compromise could be repealed, why 
couldn't that? Then, again, what's to 
66 



BACK THERE IN '58 
prevent the Supreme Court decidin' that 
Congress couldn't keep slaves out of a 
state just as it had decided that Congress 
couldn't keep 'em out of a territory. The 
more I thought of it the more I see there 
wa'n't anything to prevent men like 
Douglas and Buchanan tryin' some day 
to apply the same line of argument to Il- 
linois or Pennsylvania or New York or 
any other free state that they was usin' 
now. 

I wa'n't goin' to stand for that. I don't 
pretend I ever felt like Mr. Lincoln did 
about niggers. No, sir, I was a Demo- 
crat, and I wanted the South let alone. 
I didn't want to hear no abolition talk. 
But I was dead agin' havin' any more 
slaves than we could help, and what's 
more I wa'n't myself willin' to live in a 
state where they was. I'd seen enough 
for that. Back in the '40's, when I first 
started up this store, I used to go to New 
67 



BACK THERE IN '58 

Orleans for my goods and, bein' young, 
of course I had to see the sights. A man 
don't go to a slave market many times 
without gittin' to feel that as far as he is 
concerned he don't want nuthin' to do 
with buyin' and sellin' humans, black or 
white. ]Ma, too, she was dead set agin' it, 
and she'd said many a time when I was 
talkin', "William, if Mr. Douglas don't 
really care whether we git to be all slave 
or not, you oughten to vote for him," and 
I'd always said I wouldn't. Still I 
couldn't believe at first but what he did 
care. By the time the debates was half 
through I seen it clear enough, though. 
He didn't care a red cent — said he didn't. 
There was lots of others seen it same as 
me. I heard more'n one old Democrat 
say, "Douglas don't care. Lincoln's got 
it right, we've got to keep slavery back 
now or it's going to spread all over the 
country." 

68 



I 



BACK THERE IN *58 

You never would believe how I felt 
when I seen that, for that meant goin' 
back on Little Dug, leavin' the party and 
votin' for a Black Republican, as we used 
to call 'em. I tell you when I begun to 
see where I was goin' there wa'n't many 
nights I didn't lie awake tryin' to figure 
out how I could git around it. 'T wa'n't 
long, though, before I got over feelin' 
bad. Fact was every time I heard Mr. 
Lincoln — I used to go to all the speeches 
between debates, and there must have 
been twenty or thirty of them — ^he made 
it clearer. 'Twas amazin' how every time 
he always had some new way of puttin' 
it. Seemed as if his head was so full he 
couldn't say the same thing twice alike. 

One thing that made it easier was that 
I begun to see that Douglas wa'n't thin- 
kin' much of anything but gittin elected 
and that Lincoln wa'n't thinkin' about 
that at all. He was dead set on makin' 
69 



BACK THERE IN '5S 

US understand. Lots of people seen that 
the first thing. I recollect how up to 
Quincy that funny fellow, what do you 
call him? "Nasby-Petroleum V. Nasby." 
Young chap then. Well, he'd come out 
there for some paper. Wanted to write 
Lincoln up. It was in the evening after 
the debate and Mr. Lincoln was settin' 
up in his room at the hotel with his boots 
off and his feet on a chair — ^lettin' 'em 
breathe, he said. Had his coat and vest 
off. Nuthin' on to speak of but his pants 
and one suspender — settin' there restin' 
and gassin' with the boys when, as I 
started to say, Mr. Nasby come up. They 
had a long talk and I walked down street 
with him when he left. 

"That Lincoln of yourn is a great 
man," he says after a spell. "He ain't 
botherin' about the Senate — not a mite. 
He's tryin' to make the people of Illi- 
nois understand the danger there is in 
70 



BACK THERE IN '58 
slavery, spreadin' all over the country. 
He's a big man, the biggest man I've 
seen in a long time." 

Well, that sounded good to me, for 
that was just about what I'd figured out 
by that time, that Lincoln was a big man, 
a bigger man than Stephen A. Douglas. 
Didn't seem possible to me it could be so, 
but the more I went over it in my mind 
the more certain I felt about it. Yes, sir, 
I'd figured it out at last what bein' big 
was, that it w^as bein' right thinkin' 
things out straight and then hangin' on 
to 'em because they was right. That was 
bein' big and that was Abraham Lincoln 
all through— the whole of him. 

That wa'n't Douglas at all. He didn't 
care whether he thought right or not, if 
he got what he was after. There wa'n't 
no real truth in him. See what he did in 
the very first debate up to Ottawa. He 
started out up there by callin' Lincoln an 
71 



BACK THERE IN '58 

abolitionist and sayin' he wanted a nigger 
wife, and to prove it read a lot of aboli- 
tion resolutions which he said Lincoln 
had helped git up as far back as '54. The 
very next day after that debate, the Chi- 
cago Tribune came out and showed that 
Mr. Lincoln' hadn't ever had anything to 
do with the resolutions Douglas had read. 
Yes, sir, them resolutions had come from 
some measely abolition meetin' where 
Mr. Lincoln had never been. Douglas 
had been tryin' to play a trick on us. I 
tell you when that news got out you 
could 'a' heard a pin drop among Illinois 
Democrats. It seemed as if he couldn't 
realize how serious we was feelin' or he 
wouldn't try a trick like that. 

Then he was always draggin' in things 
which didn't have no bearin' on the case, 
and takin' up Lincoln's time makin' him 
answer 'em. One was a-tellin' how Lin- 
coln had voted against givin' money to 
72 



BACK THERE IN '58 

carry on the JNIexican War. Now, I know 
that wa'n't so, and more'n that it didn't 
have anything to do with the question. 
It made me feel plumb bad to have him 
goin' on that way. 

And that's the way he kept it up. Al- 
ways digressin', never takin' up a p'int 
till Lincoln had drove him into a corner, 
always insistin' Lincoln wanted a nigger 
wife. Wliy, he made so much of that fool 
lie that there was a lot of people got to 
thinkin' mebbe that's what Lincoln's 
idees did mean. There's a man livin' here 
in this town now that's got a little book 
Lincoln made for him to show around 
and to prove he didn't mean nuthin' of 
the kind. 

Fact was, Douglas never meant to 
argue it out fair and square. He meant 
to dodge, to mix us up and keep our 
minds off Kansas - Nebraska and old 
Judge Taney, and all the things Lincoln 
73 



BACK THERE IN '58 

made so much of. I recollect Lincoln said 
one day that the way Douglas acted re- 
minded him of a cuttle-fish throwin' out 
a black ink to color up the water so he 
could git away from something that was 
chasin' him. 

Of course what made Douglas seem 
worse was Lincoln bein' so fair and so 
dead in earnest. Sometimes it seemed as 
if he was givin' the whole case away, he 
was so honest with Douglas. But he 
knew what he was doin' every time. Lin- 
coln was the kind that breaks to win. 
And serious, why he wouldn't take time 
to tell a story. I recollect sayin' to him 
one day, "Mr. Lincoln, why don't you 
make us laugh sometimes?" "This ain't 
no time for stories, Billy," he says, "it's 
too serious." 

Felt bad because he wa'n't elected? 
Nope. Didn't expect him to be. Some- 
how I'd got to feelin' by the time elec- 
74 



BACK THERE IN '58 
tion come that it didn't make no real dif- 
ference whether he went to the Senate or 
not. His goin' there wa'n t goin' to settle 
the question. What was goin to settle it 
M^as gettin' more people to feel as he did 
about it. If he got beat tryin' to make 
people understand, it was worth a sight 
more to the country than his gettin' 
elected dodgin' the truth. I didn't figure 
that out alone, though, it was Mr. Lincoln 
helped me to see that. 

You see, after I'd made up my mind 
I'd vote the Republican ticket, one day 
when I was walkin' down the street with 
him here in town and there wa'n't nobody 
around I told him-. He looks at me sharp- 
like and then he says, mighty solemn: 
"Billy, are you sure you know what 
you're doin'? What's the reason you're 
leavin' the party? 'Cause you want to see 
me git in?" 

"No, sir," I says, "that ain't it at all. 
75 



BACK THERE IN '58 

I'm a Democrat. Besides, I hate like all 
possessed to go back on Little Doug, you 
know what store I've always set by him. 
The reason I'm votin' for you, Mr. Lin- 
coln, is because you've got it right and 
nobody can git around it. Douglas is 
wrong. There ain't nuthin' else to do but 
vote for j^our side, much- as I hate to." 

Well, sir, you never seen how he 
straightened up and how his eyes lit up 
like I'd seen 'em do when he was speakin'. 

"Billy," he says, "I'd ruther hear you 
say that than anything anybody could 
say. That's what I've been tryin' to do — 
to make people see it as I do. I believe 
I've got it figured out right, Billy. I've 
been at it night and day for four years, 
and I can't find no mistake in my line of 
argument. What I want is to make peo- 
ple understand." 

"What bothers me, Mr. Lincoln," I 
says, "is that I don't believe you'll git 
76 



BACK THERE IN '58 

elected, even if you are right," and then, 
sir, he throws back his head and just 
laiFs right out loud. "Don't worry, Billy, 
about that," he says, "that don't make 
no diiFerence. I ain't sayin' I don't want 
to go to the United States Senate — I do! 
Always have. When I quit politics in 
'49 and made up my mind I wa'n't goin' 
to have another chanct to go to Congress 
or be anybody, I was miserable. But 
that's all over. What's important now in 
this country is makin' people feel that 
slavery is wrong, that the South is bent 
on spreadin' it and that we've got to stop 
'em. Slavery is wrong, Billy, if it ain't 
wrong nuthin' is. We've got to fight 
against its spreadin', and it's goin' to be 
a durable struggle. It don't make no 
difference who gits office or who don't. 
All that's important is keepin' on fight- 
in'. Don't you worry if I ain't elected. 

The fight's goin' on." 

717 



BACK THERE IN '58 

Well, I thought that over a lot, and it 
was queer how calm I came to feel — 
calm and sure, just as you be about God 
and all that. And when he was defeated 
I didn't seem to mind — any more'n he 
did. There wa'n't hardly anybody could 
understand why he took it so easy, and 
he had to go around consolin' 'em an' 
stifFenin' 'em up and tellin' 'em as he had 
me, how it was a durable struggle — ^that's 
the word he always used — "durable." 
Alw^ays seemed to me it was exactly the 
word for it — something that wa'n't go- 
ing to wear out. 

Ever see Douglas after that? Yes, 
onct. One day after election he come in 
here, and after talkin' around a spell he 
says suddint: 

"Billy, you supported Mr. Lincoln, 

didn't you?" And he looked me straight 

in the eye, kind, but meanin' to know 

from me. Well, you bet I'd liked to have 

78 



BACK THERE IN '58 
lied, but that ain't the kind of a thing a 
man lies about. 

"Yes, Mr. Douglas," I says, "I did. I 
had to. He had it right." 

Well, sir, you never see the way he 
smiled at me. "That's right, Billy," he 
says, "I understand," and then he grips 
my hand and turns on his heel and goes 
off with his head down. 

Seemed to me I couldn't stand it. You 
see I'd always loved Little Dug, and I'd 
been proud of him. Lordy, sometimes 
when he'd come back from Washington 
in them old days and come in here, all 
dressed up and lookin' so handsome and 
great, and come up and put his arm 
around me and ask about Ma and John- 
nie and how business was, I'll be blamed 
if I didn't git red as a girl, I was so 
pleased. I'd hurrahed for him and voted 
for him for years, and here I had gone 
back on him. It just made me sick. 
79 



BACK THERE IN '58 

I couldn't stand it to stay in the store, 
so I put on my hat and went home and 
told Ma. "I almost wisht I hadn't done 
it," I says, groanin'. 

"William," Ma says, "you know well 
enough you couldn't have done nuthin' 
else. I don't understand these things 
none too well. 'Tain't a woman's business ; 
but you done what you thought was right 
and you ain't no call to worry about do- 
in' what you think is right." That's the 
way Ma always talks. You ought to 
know Ma. 

Still there ain't no use denyin' it. I 
don't ever think about the last time I seen 
Little Dug without feelin' bad. I never 
could be hard on him like some was for 
that Kansas-Nebraska bill. You see, fact 
was he thought he was doin' a fine thing 
when he got up that bill. He seen the 
South wa'n't satisfied, and he thought 
he'd fix up something to please 'em and 

80 



BACK THERE IN '58 

keep 'em still a while — a kind of Daniel 
Webster he was tryin' to be, makin' a 
new compromise. 

Douglas got so busy tryin' to please 
the South he clean lost sight of what the 
people was thinkin' back home. I reckon 
he wan't countin' on us thinkin' at all 
— ^just took it for granted w^e'd believe 
what he told us, like we'd alwaj^s done. 
Surprisin' how long you can fool people 
with the talk they was brought up on. 
Seems sometimes as if they hated to 
break in a new set of idees as bad as they 
do new boots. I reckon that was what 
Douglas w^as countin' on back there 
in '58. But he got it wrong that time. 
He hadn't reckoned on what Abraham 
Lincoln had been doin'. Before he got 
through them debates, Douglas sus- 
spected it in my judgment. He knew 
that even if he did git to the Senate, Lin- 
coln was the one that had come out ahead. 
81 



BACK THERE IN '58 

Queer how every day after that elec- 
tion, it showed up more and more that 
Lincoln was ahead. Seemed sometimes 
that as if everybody in the whole North 
was bent on hearin' him speak. Why, 
they sent for him to come to New York 
and Boston, and all the big men East got 
to writin' to him, and the first thing I 
knowed the boys was talkin' about his 
bein' President. 

Well, I thought that was goin' a leetle 
far. Just as I told you t'other day, it 
seemed to me almost as if somebody was 
pokin' fun at him. He didn't seem to me 
to look like a President. Queer how long 
it takes a man to find out that there ain't 
anything in the world so important as 
honest thinkin' and actin', and that when 
you've found a man that never lets up 
'til he sees clear and right, and then hangs 
on to what he sees like a dog to a root, 
you can't make a mistake in tyin' to him. 

82 



BACK THERE IN '58 

You can trust him anywhere. Queer how 
long we are all taken in by high-soundin' 
talk and fashionable ways and fine prom- 
ises. But don't you make no mistake, 
they ain't no show in the long run with 
honest thinkin'. 



83 



FATHER ABRAHAM 



KIND-HEARTED? Mr. Lin- 
coln hind-hearted? 
I don't believe a man ever lived 
who'd rather seen everybody happy and 
peaceable than Abraham Lincoln. He 
never could stand it to have people suf- 
ferin' or not gettin' what they wanted. 
Time and time again I've seen him go 
taggin' up street here in this town after 
some youngster that was blubberin' be- 
cause he couldn't have what wa'n't good 
for him. Seemed as if he couldn't rest 
till that child was smiHn' again. You can 
go all over Springfield and talk to the 
people who was boys and girls when he 
lived here and every blamed one will tell 
you something he did for 'em. Every- 
87 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
body's friend, that's what he was. Jest 
as natural for him to be that way as 'twas 
for him to eat or drink. 

Yes, I suppose bein' like that did make 
the war harder on him. But he had horse 
sense as well as a big heart, Mr. Lincoln 
had. He knew you couldn't have war 
without somebody gettin' hurt. He eoo- 
pected sufferin', but he knew 'twas his 
business not to have any more than was 
necessary and to take care of what come. 
And them was two things that wa'n't done 
like they ought to 'a' been. That was 
what worried him. 

Seemed as if hardly anybody at the 
start had any idea of how important 'twas 
to take good care of the boys and keep 'em 
from gettin' sick or if they did get sick to 
cure 'em. I remember Leonard Swett was 
in here one day 'long back in '61 and he 
says: "Billy, Mr. Lincoln knows more 

88 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
about how the soldiers in the Army of 
the Potomac cook flapjacks than you do 
about puttin' up quinine. There ain't a 
blamed thing they do in that army that he 
ain't interested in. I went down to camp 
with him one day and I never see an old 
hunter in the woods quicker to spot a rab- 
bit's track than he was every httle kink 
about the houscKcepin'. When we got 
back to town he just sat and talked and 
talked about the way the soldiers was liv- 
in', seemed to know all about 'em every- 
ways: where they was short of shoes, 
where the rations were poor, where they 
had camp-fever worst ; told me how hard- 
tack was made, what a good thing quinine 
and onions are to have handy, — ^best cure 
for diarrhea, sore feet, homesickness, 
everything. I never heard anytliing like 
it." 

Seemed to bother Swett a Httle that 
89 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
Mr. Lincoln took so much interest in all 
them little tilings, but I said: " Don't you 
worry, Mr. Swett, Mr. Lincoln's got the 
right idee. An army that don't have its 
belly and feet taken care of ain't goin' to 
do much fightin', and Mr. Lincoln's got 
sense enough to know it. He knows diar- 
rhea's a blamed sight more dangerous to 
the Army of the Potomac than Stonewall 
Jackson. Trouble so far has been, in my 
judgment, that the people that ought to 
have been seein' to what the soldiers was 
eatin' and drinkin' and whether their beds 
was dry and their bowels movin', was 
spendin' their time polishin' their buttons 
and shinin' their boots for parade." 

" What I don't see," says Swett, " is 
how he learned all the things he knows. 
They ain't the kind of things you'd natu- 
rally think a president of the United 
States would be interestin' himself in." 
90 



FATHER ABRAHAIVI' 
There 'twas, — same old fool notion that 
a president ought to sit inside somewhere 
and think about the Constitution. I used 
to be that way — always saw a president 
lookin' like that old picture of Thomas 
Jefferson up there settin' beside a parlor 
table holdin' a roll of parchment in his 
hand, and Leonard Swett was like me a 
little in spite of liis bein' educated. 

Learned it! Think of Leonard Swett 
askin' that with all his chances of bein' 
,with Mr. Lincoln! Learned it just as he 
had everything by bein' so dead interested. 
He'd learned it if he hadn't been president 
at all, if he'd just been loafin' around 
Washington doin' nutliin'. Greatest hand 
to take notice of things. I tell you he'd 
made a great war correspondent. Things 
he'd 'a' seen! And the way he'd 'a' told 
'em! I can just see him now pumpin' 
everybody that had been to the front. 
91 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
Great man to make you talk, Mr. Lin- 
coln was. I've heard him say himself that 
most of the education he had he'd got from 
people who thought they was learnin' 
from him. 

I reckon he learned a lot more from sol- 
diers about how the armies was bein' taken 
care of than he did from generals. My 
brother Isaac, who had a place down there 
addin' up figgers or somethin', used to tell 
me of seein' Mr. Lincoln stoppin' 'em on 
the street and out around the White 
House and talkin' to 'em. Isaac said 
'twa'n't becomin' in the President of the 
lUnited States to be so familiar with com- 
mon soldiers, he ought to keep among the 
generals and members of the administra- 
tion. Isaac always reckoned himself a 
member of the administration. 

" More than that," says Isaac, " it ain't 
Signified for a president to be always run- 
92 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
nin' out after things himself instead of 
sendin' somebody. He's always goin' 
over to the telegraph office with messages, 
and settin' down by the operators talkin' 
and readin' dispatches and waitin' for an- 
swers. One day he came right up to my 
office to ask me to look up the record of 
Johnnie Banks, old Aunt Sally Banks' 
boy, that was goin' to be shot for desertion. 
Seemed to think I'd be interested be- 
cause he came from Illinois — came right 
up there instead of sendin' for me to go to 
the White House like he ought to, and 
when I took what I found over to him and 
he found out Johnnie wa'n't but eighteen, 
he put on his hat and went over liimself 
to the telegraph office, took me along, and 
sent a message that I saw, sayin', ' I don't 
want anybody as young as eighteen to be 
shot! And that night he went back and 
sent another message askin' if they'd re- 
93 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
ceived the first — wasn't satisfied till he 
knew it couldn't happen. There wa'n't 
any reason why he should spend his time 
that way. He ought to give orders and 
let other folks see they're carried out. 
That's what I'd do if I was president." 

That riled me. " I reckon there ain't 
any need to worry about ihat^ Isaac," I 
says. " You won't never be president. 
Mr. Lincoln's got too many folks around 
him now that don't do nuthin' but give 
orders. That's one reason he has to do 
his own executin'." 

But 'twas just hke him to go and do it 
himself. So interested he had to see to it. 
I've heard difiFerent ones tell time and time 
again that whenever he'd pardoned a sol- 
dier he couldn't rest till he'd get word 
back that 'twas all right. Did you ever 
hear about that Vermont boy in McClel- 
lan's army, sentenced to be shot along at 
94* 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
the start for sleepin' on his post. 'Twas 
when they was camped over in Virginia 
right near Washington. Mr. Lincoln 
didn't know about it till late and when he 
heard the story he telegraphed down not 
to do it. Then he telegraphed askin' if 
they'd got his orders and when he didn't 
get an answer what does he do but get in 
his carriage and drive himself ten miles to 
camp to see that they didn't do it. Now 
that's what I call bein' a real president. 
That's executin'. 

Well, as I was sayin', he understood 
the importance of a lot of tilings them 
young officers and some of the old ones 
didn't see at all, and he knew where to get 
the truth about 'em — went right to the sol- 
diers for it. They was just Kke the folks 
he was used to, and Mr. Lincoln was the 
greatest hand for folks — just plain com- 
mon folks — you ever see. He Hked 'em, 
95 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
never forgot 'em, just natural nice to 
'em. 

It used to rile old Judge Davis a lot 
when they was travelin' the circuit, the way 
Mr. Lincoln never made no difference be- 
tween lawyers and common folks. I heard 
Judge Logan tellin' in here one day about 
their all bein' in the tavern up to Bloom- 
ington one day. In those times there was 
just one big table for everybody. The 
lawyers and big bugs always set at one 
end and the teamsters and farmers at the 
other. Mr. Lincoln used to like to get 
down among the workin' folks and get the 
news. Reckon he got kinda tired hearin' 
discussin' goin' on all the time. Liked to 
hear about the crops and politics and folks 
he knew. 

This time he was down among 'em, and 
Judge Davis, who always wanted Lincoln 
right under his nose, calls out: " Come up 
96 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
here, Mr. Lincoln; here's where you be- 
long." And Mr. Lincoln, he looked kinda 
funny at the Judge and he says: 

" Got any tiling better to eat up there. 
Judge? " And everybody tee-heed. 

Feelin' as he did about folks I could 
see how it would go ag'in the grain for 
the boys in the army to have a harder time 
than was necessary. He'd argue that they 
was doin' the fightin' and ought to have 
the care. He'd feel a good deal worse 
about their bein' neglected than he would 
about the things he knew beforehand he 
had to stand, hke woundin' and kilKn'. 
And 'twas just that way so I found out 
the time I was down to Washington visit- 
in' him. 

I told you, didn't I, how I went up to 
the Soldiers' Home and how we walked 
out that night and sat and talked till al- 
most mornin'? 'Twas a clear night with 
97 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
lots of stars and Washington looked 
mighty pretty lyin' there still and white. 
Mr. Lincoln pointed out the Capitol and 
the White House and Arlington and the 
Long Bridge, showin' me the lay of the 
land. 

" And it's nuthin' but one big hospital, 
Billy," he said after a while. " You 
wouldn't think, would you, looldn' down 
on it so peaceful and quiet, that there's 
50,000 sick and wounded soldiers there? 
Only Almighty God knows how many of 
'em are dyin' this minute ; only Almighty 
God knows how many are sufferin' so 
they're prayin' to die. They are comin' 
to us every day now — ^have been ever since 
the Wilderness, 50,000 here and 150,000 
scattered over the country. There's a 
crawlin' line of sick and wounded all the 
way from here to Petersburg to-night. 
There's a line from Georgia to Chatta- 
98 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
nooga — Sherman's men. You can't put 
your finger on a spot in the whole North 
that ain't got a crippled or fever-struck 
soldier in it. There were days in May, 
just after the Wilderness, when Mary and 
I used to drive the carriage along lines of 
ambulances which stretched from the 
docks to the hospitals, one, two miles. 
It was a thing to tear your heart out to 
see them. They brought them from the 
field just as they picked them up, with 
horrible, gaping, undressed wounds, blood 
and dust and powder caked over them — 
eaten by flies and mosquitoes. They'd 
been piled hke cord wood on flat cars and 
transports. Sometimes they didn't get a 
drink until they were distributed here. 
Often when it was cold the}^ had no blan- 
ket, when it was hot they had no shade. 
That was nearly four months ago, and 
still they come. Night after night as I 
99 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
drive up here from the Wliite House I 
pass twenty, thirty, forty ambulances in 
a row distributin' the wounded and sick 
from Grant's army. 

" Think what it means! It means that 
boys like you and me w^ere, not so long 
ago, have stood up and shot each other 
down — ^liave trampled over each other and 
have left each other wounded and bleed- 
ing on the ground, in the rain or the heat, 
nobody to give 'em a drink or to say a 
kind word. Nothing but darkness and 
blood and groans and torture. Some- 
times I can't beheve it's true. Boys from 
Illinois where I hve, shootin' boys from 
Kentucky where I was born! It's only 
when I see them comin' in I realize it — 
boat load after boat load, wagon load 
after wagon load. It seemed sometimes 
after Bull Run and Fredericksburg and 
Chancellorsville if they didn't stop unload- 

100 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
in' 'em I'd go plumb crazy. But still they 
come, and only God knows when they'll 
stop. They say hell's like war, Billy. If 
'tis, — I'm glad I ain't Satan." 

Of course I tried to cheer him up. I'd 
been around visitin' the Illinois boys in 
the hospitals that day and I just ht in and 
told him how comfortable I'd found 'em 
and how cliipper most of them seemed. 
" You'd think 'twas fun to be in the hos- 
pital to see some of 'em, Mr. Lincoln," 
I said. " What do you suppose old Tom 
Blodgett was doin'? Settin' up darnin' 
his socks. Yes, sir, insisted on doin' it 
liimself. Said them socks had fit all the 
way from Washington to Richmond. 
They'd stood by him and he was goin' to 
stand by them. Goin' to dress their 
wounds as good as the doctor had his. 
Never saw anything so funny as that big 
feller propped up there tryin' to darn like 

101 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
he'd seen liis mother do and all the time 
makin' fun. All the boys around were 
laffin' at him — called him the sock doctor. 

" And things were so clean and white 
and pretty and the women were runnin' 
around just like home." 

" God bless 'em," he said. " I don't 
know what we'd 'a' done if it hadn't been 
for the way the women have taken hold. 
Come down here wilhn' to do anything; 
women that never saw a cut finger before, 
will stand over a wound so terrible men 
will faint at the sight of it. I've known 
of women spendin' whole nights on a bat- 
tlefield huntin' for somebody they'd lost 
and stoppin' as they went to give water 
and take messages, I've known 'em to 
work steady for three days and nights 
\\ithout a wink of sleep down at the front 
after a battle, takin' care of the wounded. 
Here in Washington you can't stop 'em 

102 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
as long as they can see a thing to be done. 
At home they're supportin' the families 
and worldn' day and night to help us. 
They give their husbands and their boys 
and then themselves. God bless the wo- 
men, Billy. We can't save the Union 
without 'em. 

" It makes a difference to the boys in a 
hospital havin' 'em. People don't real- 
ize how young this army is. Half the 
wounded here in Washington to-day are 
children — not twenty yet — lots of 'em 
under eighteen. Children who never went 
to sleep in their lives before they went 
into the army without kissin' their mothers 
good-night. You take such a boy as that 
and let him lie in camp a few months 
gettin' more and more tired of it and he 
gets homesick — plain homesick — he wants 
Iiis mother. Perhaps he don't know 
what's the matter and he wouldn't admit 

103 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
it if he did. First thing you know he's 
in the hospital with camp fever, or he gets 
wounded. I tell you a woman looks good 
to him. 

" It's a queer tiling to say, Billy, but I 
get real comfort out of the hospitals. 
When you know what the wounded have 
been through — how they have laid on the 
battlefields for hours and hours uncared 
for, how they've suffered bein' hauled up 
here, there ain't nuthin' consoles you like 
knowin' that their wounds have been 
dressed and that they are clean and fed, 
and looked after. Then they are so thank- 
ful to be here — to have some one to see to 
'em. I remember one day a boy who had 
been all shot up but was gettin' better 
sayin' to me: * Mr. Lincoln, I can't sleep 
nights thinkin' how comfortable I am.' 
It's so good to find 'em reahzin' that 
everybody cares — the whole country. 

104. 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
People come and read to 'em and write 
letters for 'em and bring 'em things. 
Why, they have real good times at some 
of the places. Down to Armory Square 
Bliss has got a melodeon and they have 
concerts sometimes, and there are flags 
up and flowers in the windows. I got 
some flower seeds last summer for Bliss 
to plant outside, but they turned out to 
be lettuce and onions. The boys ate 'em 
and you ought to heard 'em laugh about 
my flowers. I tell you it makes me happy 
when I go around and find the poor fel- 
lows smihn' up at me and sayin' : ' You're 
takin' good care of us, ]Mr. Lincoln,' and 
maybe crack a joke. 

" They take it all so natural, trampin' 
and fightin' and dyin'. It's a wonderful 
army — wonderful! You couldn't believe 
that boys that back home didn't ever have 
a serious thought in their heads could ever 

105 



IFATHER ABRAHAM 
be so dead set as they be about an idee. 
Tliink of it! A million men are lookin' 
up at these stars to-night, a million men 
ready to die for the Union to-morrow if 
it's got to be done to save it! I tell you, 
it shows what's in 'em. They're all the 
same, young or old — the Union's got to 
be saved ! Of course you'd expect it more 
of the old ones, and we've got some old 
ones, older than the law allows, too. 
'Tain't only the youngsters who have lied 
themselves into the service. Only to-day 
a Congressman was in telHn' me about 
one of his constituents, said he was over 
sixty-five and white-haired when he first 
enlisted. They refused him of course, 
and I'll be blamed if the old fellow didn't 
dye his hair black and change liis name, 
and when they asked him his age, said: 
' Rising thirty-five,' and he's been fightin' 
good for two years and now they'd found 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
him out. The Congressman asked me 
what he ought to do. I told him if 'twas 
me I'd keep Mm in hair dye." 

We was still a while and then Mr. Lin- 
coln began talkin', more to himself than to 
me. 

"A million men, a mighty host — and 
one word of mine would bring the milHon 
sleeping boys to their feet — send them 
without a word to their guns — they would 
fall in rank — regiment on regiment, bri- 
gade on brigade, corps on corps, a word 
more and they would march steady, quiet, 
a milKon men in step straight ahead, over 
fields, through forests, across rivers. 
Nothing could stop them — cannons might 
tear holes in their ranks, and they would 
fill them up, a half million might be bled 
out of them, and a word of mine would 
bring a half million more to fill their place, 
107 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
Oh, God, my God," he groaned, under his 
breath, " what am I that Thou shouldst 
ask this of me! What am I that Thou 
shouldst trust me so ! " 

Well, I just dropped my head in my 
hands — seemed as if I oughten to look at 
him — and the next thing I knew Mr. Lin- 
coln's arm was over my shoulder and he 
was saying in that smilin' kind of voice he 
had: " Don't mind me, Billy. The Lord 
generally knows what He's about and He 
can get rid of me quick enough if He sees 
I ain't doin' the job — quicker than the 
Copperheads can." 

Just like him to change so. Didn't 
want anybody to feel bad. But I never 
forgot that, and many a time in my sleep 
I've heard Abraham Lincoln's voice cry- 
ing out: " Oh, God, my God, what am I 
that Thou shouldst ask this of me! " and 
IVe groaned to tliink how often through 

108 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
them four awful years he must have lifted 
up his face with that look on it and asked 
the Lord what in the world he was doing 
that thing for. 

"After all, Billy," he went on, "it's 
surprisin' what a happy arm}^ it is. In 
spite of bein' so dead in earnest and havin' 
so much trouble of one kind and another, 
seems sometimes as if you couldn't put 
'em anywhere that they wouldn't scare up 
some fun. Greatest chaps to sing on the 
march, to cut up capers and play tricks 
you ever saw. I reckon the army's a little 
like me, it couldn't do its job if it didn't 
get a good laugh now and then — sort o' 
clears up the air when things are lookin' 
blue. Anyhow the boys are always get- 
tin' themselves into trouble by their 
pranks. Jokin' fills the guard-house as 
often as drunkenness or laziness. That 
and their bein' so sassy. A lot of 'em 
109 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
think they know just as much as the offi- 
cers do, and I reckon thej^'re right pretty 
often. It takes some time to learn that 
it ain't good for the service for them to 
be speakin' their minds too free. At the 
start they did it pretty often — do now 
sometimes. Why, only just this week 
Stanton told me about a sergeant, who 
one day when the commanding officer 
was relieving Ms mind by swearing at 
his men, stepped right out of the ranks 
and reproved him and said he was break- 
ing the law of God. Well, they clapped 
him in the guard-house and now they 
want to punish liim harder — say he ain't 
penitent — ^keeps disturbin' the guard- 
house by prayin' at the top of his voice 
for that officer. I told Stanton we better 
not interfere, that there wasn't nothing 
in the regulations against a man's prayin' 
for liis officers. 

110 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
" Yes, it's a funny army. There don't 
seem to be but one thing that discourages 
it, and that's not fightin'. Keep 'em still 
in camp where you'd think they'd be com- 
fortable and they go to pieces every time. 
It's when they're lyin' still we have the 
worst camp fever and the most deserters. 
Keep 'em on the move, let 'em think 
they're goin' to have a fight and they perk 
up right off. 

"We can't fail with men like that. 
Make all the mistakes we can, they'll 
make up for 'em. The hope of this war is 
in the common soldiers, not in the generals 
— not in the War Department, not in me. 
It's in the boys. Sometimes it seems to 
me that nobody sees it quite right. It's in 
war as it is in life — a whole raft of men 
work day and night and sweat and die to 
get in the crops and mine the ore and 
build the towns and sail the seas. They 
m 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
make the wealth but they get mighty little 
of it. We ain't got our values of men's 
work figured out right yet — the value of 
the man that gives orders and of the man 
that takes 'em. I hear people talkin' as if 
the history of a battle was what the gen- 
erals did. I can't help thinkin' that the 
history of this war is in the knapsack of 
the common soldier. He's makin' that 
history just like the farmers are maldn' 
the wealth. We fellows at the top are 
only usin' what they make. 

"At any rate that's the way I see it, 
and I've tried hard ever since I've been 
down here to do all I could for the boys. 
I know lots of officers think I peek 
around camp too much, think 'tain't good 
for discipline. But I've always felt I 
ought to know how they was livin' and 
there didn't seem to be no other sure way 
of findin' out. Officers ain't always good 

112 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
housekeepers, and I kinda felt I'd got to 
keep my eye on the cupboard. 

" I reckon Stanton tliinks I've inter- 
fered too much, but there's been more'n 
enough trouble to go around in tliis war, 
and the only hope was helpin' where you 
could. But 'tain't much one can do. I 
can no more help every soldier that comes 
to me in trouble than I can dip all the 
water out of the Potomac with a teaspoon. 

" Then there's that pardoning business. 
Every now and then I have to fix it up 
with Stanton or some officer for pardon- 
ing so many boys. I suppose it's pretty 
hard for them not to have all their rules 
lived up to. They've worked out a lot of 
laws to govern this army, and I s'pose 
it's natural enough for 'em to tliink the 
most important thing in the world is 
havin' 'em obeyed. They've got it fixed 
so the boys do everytliing accordin' to 

113 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
regulations. They won't even let 'em die 
of something that ain't on the list — 
got to die accordin' to the regulations. 
But by jingo, Billy, I ain't goin' to have 
boys shot accordin' to no dumb regula- 
tions! I ain't goin' to have a butcher's 
day every Friday in the army if I can 
help it. It's so what they say about me, 
that I'm always lookin' for an excuse to 
pardon somebody. I do it every time I 
can find a reason. When they're young 
and when they're green or when they've 
been worked on by Copperheads or when 
they've got disgusted lyin' still and come 
to think we ain't doin' our job — ^when I 
see that I ain't goin' to have 'em shot. 
And then there's my leg cases. I've got a 
drawerful. They make Holt maddest — 
says he ain't any use for cowards. Well, 
generally speakin' I ain't, but I ain't 
sure what I'd do if I was standin' in front 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
of a gun, and more'n that as I told Holt 
if Almighty God gives a man a cow- 
ardly pair of legs how can he help 
their running away with liim? 

" You can't make me believe it's good 
poHcy to shoot these soldiers, anyhow. 
Seems to me one thing we've never taken 
into account as we ought to is that this is 
a volunteer army. These men came down 
here to put an end to tliis rebellion and 
not to get trained as soldiers. They just 
dropped the work they was doin' right 
where it was — never stopped to fix up 
things to be away long. Why, we've got a 
little minister at the head of one company 
that was preachin' when he heard the news 
of Bull Run. He shut up his Bible, told 
the congregation what had happened, and 
said: * Brethren, I reckon it's time for us 
to adjourn tliis meetin' and go home and 
drill,' and they did it, and now they'rg 

115 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
down with Grant. When the war's over 
that man will go back and finish that 
sermon. 

" That's the way with most of 'em. 
You can't treat such an army like you 
would one that had been brought up to 
soljerin' as a business. They'll take dis- 
ciphne enough to fight, but they don't 
take any stock in it as a means of earnin' 
a livin'. 

" More'n that they've got their own 
ideas about politics and military tactics 
and mighty clear ideas about all of us that 
are runnin' things. You can't fool 'em on 
an officer. They know when one ain't fit 
to command, and time and time again 
they've pestered a coward or a braggart 
or a bully out of the service. An officer 
who does his job best he can, even if he 
ain't very smart, just honest and faithful, 
they'll stand by and help. If he's a big 
116 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
one, a real big man, they can't do enough 
for him. Take the way they feel about 
Thomas, the store they set by him. I 
met a boy on crutches out by the White 
House the other day and asked him where 
he got wounded. He told me about the 
place they held. ' Pretty hot, wasn't it? ' 
I said. ' Yes, but Old Pap put us there 
and he wouldn't 'a' done it if he hadn't 
known we could 'a' held it.' No more 
question ' Old Pap ' than they would God 
Almighty. But if it had been some gen- 
erals they'd skedaddled. 

** They ain't never made any mistake 
about me just because I'm president. A 
wliile after Bull Run I met a boy out on 
the street here on crutches, thin and white, 
and I stopped to ask him about how he 
got hurt. Well, Billy, he looked at me 
hard as nails, and he says : ' Be you Abe 
Lincoln?' And I said, ' Yes.' \WeIl,' 
117 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
he says, ' all I've got to say is you don't 
know your job. I enlisted glad enough to 
do my part and I've done it, but you ain't 
done yourn. You promised to feed me, 
and I marched three days at the begin- 
ning of these troubles without anytliing to 
eat but hardtack and two chunks of salt 
pork — no bread, no coffee — and what I 
did get wasn't regular. They got us up 
one mornin' and marched us ten miles 
without breakfast. Do you call that pro- 
vidin' for an army? And they sent us 
down to fight the Rebs at Bull Run, and 
when we was doin' our best and holdin' 
'em — I tell you, holdin' 'em — they told us 
to fall back. I swore I wouldn't — I 
hadn't come down there for that. They 
made me — rode me down. I got struck 
— struck in the back. Struck in the back 
and they left me there — never came for 
me, never gave me a drink and I dyin' of 

118 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
thirst. I crawled five miles for water, and 
I'd be dead and rottin' in Virginia to-day 
if a teamster hadn't picked me up and 
brought me to tliis town and found an old 
darkey to take care of me. You ain't 
doin' your job, Abe Lincoln; you won't 
win this war until you learn to take care 
of the soldiers.' 

" I couldn't say a thing. It was true. 
It's been true all the time. It's true to- 
day. We ain't takin' care of the soldiers 
like we ought. 

" You don't suppose such men are goin' 
to accept the best lot of regulations ever 
made without asldn' questions? Not a 
bit of it. They know when things are 
right and when they're not. When they 
see a man who they know is notliing but 
a boy or one they know's bein' eat up with 
homesickness or one whose term is out, 
and ought to be let go, throwing every- 
119 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
thing over and desertin', it don't make 
them any better soldiers to have us shoot 
him. Makes 'em worse in my judgment, 
makes 'em think we don't understand. 
Anyhow, discipUne or no diseipHne, I 
ain't goin' to have any more of it than I 
can help. It ain't good common sense. 

" You can't run this army altogether as 
if 'twas a machine. It ain't. It's a peo- 
ple's army. It offered itself. It has 
come down here to fight tliis thing out — 
just as it would go to the polls. It is 
greater than its generals, greater than the 
administration. We are created to care 
for it and lead it. It is not created for 
us. Every day the war has lasted I've 
felt this army growin' in power and deter- 
mination. I've felt its hand on me, guid- 
ing, compelhng, threatening, upholding 
me, felt its distrust and its trust, its blame 
and its love. I've felt its patience and its 

120 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
sympathy. The greatest comfort I get is 
when sometimes I feel as if mebbe the 
army understood what I was tryin' to do 
whether Greeley did or not. They mider- 
stood because it's their war. Why, we 
might fail, every one of us, and this war 
would go on. The army would find 
its leaders like they say the old Roman 
armies sometimes did and would finish 
the fight. 

" I tell you, Billy, there ain't nuthin' 
that's ever happened in the world so far 
as I know that gives one such faith in the 
people as this army and the way it acts. 
There's been times, I ain't denyin', when 
I didn't know but the war was goin' to be 
too much for us, times when I thought 
that mebbe a repubhc hke tliis couldn't 
stand such a strain. It's the kind of gov- 
ernment we've got that's bein' tested in 
this war, government by the people, and 

121 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
it's the People's Army that makes me cer- 
tain it can't be upset." 

I tell you it done me good to see him 
settin' up straight there talkin' so proud 
and confident, and as I was watchin' him 
there popped into my head some words 
from a song I'd heard the soldiers sing: 

We are coming. Father Abraham, three hundred 

thousand more — 
From Mississippi's winding stream and from New 

England's shore. 

You have called us and we're coming. By Rich- 
mond's bloody tide 

To lay us down, for Freedom's sake, our brothers* 
bones beside; 

Six hundred thousand loyal men and true have 

gone before — 
We are coming. Father Abraham, three hundred 

thousand more. 

122 



FATHER ABRAHAM 
That was it. That was what he was, 
the Father of the Army, Father Abra- 
ham, and somehow the soldiers had found 
it out. Curious how a lot of people who 
never see a man in their lives will come to 
understand him exact. 



123 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 



Y 



<<"^ /"ES, sir; he was what I call a 
godly man. Fact is, I never 
knew anybody I felt so sure 
would walk straight into Heaven, every- 
body welcomin' him, nobody fussin' or 
f umin' about his bein' let in as Abraham 
Lincoln." 

Billy was tilted back in a worn high-back 
Windsor, I seated properly in his famous 
^'Lincoln's chair," a seat too revered for 
anybody to stand on two legs. It was a 
snowy blusterly day and the talk had run 
on uninterruptedly from the weather to 
the campaign. (The year was 1896, and 
'Eilly, being a gold Democrat, was gloomy 
over pohtics.) We had finally arrived, 
127 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
as we always did when we met, at "when 
Mr. Lincoln was alive," and Billy had 
been dwelling lovingly on his great 
friend's gentleness, goodness, honesty. 

"You know I never knew anybody," he 
went on, "who seemed to me more inter- 
ested in God, more curious about Him, 
more anxious to find out what He was 
drivin' at in the world, than Mr. Lincoln. 
I reckon he was alius that way. There 
ain't any doubt that from the time he was 
a little shaver he grabbed on to everything 
that came his way — wouldn't let it go 'til 
he had it worked out, fixed in his mind 
so he understood it, and could tell it the 
way he saw it. Same about religion as 
everything else. Of course he didn't get 
no religious teachin' like youngsters have 
nowadays — Sunday schools and church 
regular every Sunday — lessons all worked 
out, and all kinds of books to explain 'em. 
Still I ain't sure but what they give so 

128 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
many helps now, the Bible don't get much 
show. 

"It wa'n't so when ]Mr. Lincoln was a) 
boy. No, sir. Bible was the whole thing, 
and there ain't any doubt he knew it pretty 
near by heart, knew it well before he ever 
could read, for Lincoln had a good mother, 
that's sure, the kind that wanted more 
than anything else in the world to have 
her boy grow up to be a good man, and 
she did all she knew how to teach him 
right. 

"I remember hearin' him say once how 
she used to tell him Bible stories, teach 
him verses — always quotin' 'em. I can 
see him now sprawlin' on the floor in front 
of the fire listenin' to Nancy Hanks tellin' 
him about Moses and Jacob and Noah 
and all those old fellows, tellin' him about 
Jesus and his dyin' on the cross. I tell 
you that took hold of a little shaver, livin' 
like he did, remote and not havin' many 

129 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
books or places to go. Filled you chuck 
full of wonder and mystery, made you lie 
awake nights, and sometimes swelled you 
all up, wantin' to be good. 

*'Must have come mighty hard on him 
havin' her die. Think of a httle codger 
like him seein' his mother lyin' dead in 
that shack of theirs, seein' Tom Lincoln 
holdin' his head and wonderin' what he'd 
do now. Poor little tad! He must have 
crept up and looked at her, and gone out 
and throwed himself on the ground and 
cried himself out. Hard thing for a boy 
of nine to lose his mother, specially in 
such a place as they lived in. 

"I don't see how he could get much 
comfort out of what they taught about 
her dyin', sayin' it was God's will, and 
hintin' that if you'd been what you ought 
to be it wouldn't have happened, never 
told a man that if he let a woman work 
herself to death it was his doin's she died 

ISO 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
' — ^not God's will at all — God's will she 
should live and be happy and make him 
happy. 

*'But I must say Mr. Lincoln had luck 
in the step-mother he got. If there ever 
was a good woman, it was Sarah Johns- 
ton, and she certain did her dutj^ by Tom 
Lincoln's children. 'Twa'n't so easj^ either, 
poor as he w^as, the kind that never really 
got a hold on anything. Sarah Johnston 
did her part — teachin' Mr. Lincoln just as 
his own mother would, and just as anxious 
as she'd been to have him grow up a good 
man. I tell you she was proud of him 
when he got to be President. I remember 
seein' her back in '62 or '3 on the farm ]\Ir. 
Lincoln gave her, little ways out of 
Charleston. One of the last things Mr. 
Lincoln did before he went to Washing- 
ton was to go down there and see his step- 
mother. He knew better than anybody 
what she'd done for him. 

131 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
"Yes, sir, the best religious teachin' Mr. 
Lincoln ever got was from Tom Lincoln's 
two wives. It was the kind that went 
deep and stuck, because he saw 'em livin' 
it every day, practicin' it on him and his 
sister and his father and the neighbors. 
Whatever else he might have seen and 
learnt, when he was a boy he knew what 
his two mothers thought religion meant, 
and he never got away from that. 

"Of course he had other teachin', prin- 
cipally what he got from the preachers 
that came around, now and then. Ram- 
blin' lot they was, men all het up over the 
sins of the world, and bent on doin' their 
part towards headin' off people from hell- 
fire. They traveled around alone, some- 
times on horseback, sometimes afoot — 
poor as Job, not too much to wear or to 
eat, never thinkin' of themselves, only 
about savin' souls ; and it was natural that 
bein' alone so much, seein' so much misery 

132 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
and so much wickedness, for there was lots 
that was bad in that part of the world in 
them times — natm'al enough meditatin' as 
they did that they preached pretty strong 
doctrine. Didn't have a chance often at 
a congregation, and felt they must scare 
it to repentance if they couldn't do no 
other way. ^They'd work up people 'til 
they got 'em to shoutin' for mere}". 

"I don't suppose they ever had anybody 
that listened better to 'em than Mr. 
Lincoln. I can just see him watchin' 'em 
and tryin' to understand what they meant. 
He was curious, rolled things over, kept 
at 'em and no amount of excitement they 
stirred up would ever have upset him. 
Xo, he wa'n't that kind. 

"But he remembered what they said, 
and the way they said it. Used to get the 
youngsters together and try it on them. I 
heard him talkin' in here one day about 
the early preachin' and I remember his 

133 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
sayin' : *I got to be quite a preacher my- 
self in those days. You know how those 
old fellows felt they hadn't done their duty 
if they didn't get everybody in the church 
weepin' for their sins. We never set 
much store by a preacher that didn't draw 
tears and groans. Pretty strong doc- 
trine, mostly hell-fire. There was a time 
when I preached myself to the children 
every week we didn't have a minister. 
I didn't think much of my sermon if I 
didn't make 'em cry. I reckon there was 
more oratory than religion in what I had 
to say.*^ 

"I reckon he was right about that, alius 
tryin' to see if he could do what other 
folks did, sort of measurin' himself. 

"Yes, sir, so far as preachin' was con- 
cerned it was a God of wrath that Abra- 
ham Lincoln was brought up on, and there 
ain't any denyin' that he had to go through 
a lot that carried out that idea. A boy 

134 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
can't grow up in a backwoods settlement 
like Gentryville, Indiana, without seein' a 
lot that's puzzlin', sort of scares you and 
makes you miserable. Things was harsh 
and things was skimpy. There wa'n't 
so much to eat. Sometimes there was 
fever and ague and rheumatiz and milk 
sick. Woman died from too much work. 
No medicine — no care, like his mother did. 
I expect there wa'n't any human crime or 
sorrow he didn't know about, didn't 
wonder about. Thing couldn't be so ter- 
rible he would keep away from it. Why 
I heard him tell once how a boy he knew 
went crazy, never got over it, used to sing 
to himself all night long, and Mr. Lincoln 
said that he couldn't keep away, but used 
to slip out nights and listen to that poor 
idiot croonin' to himself. He was like 
that, interested in strange things he didn't 
understand, in signs and dreams and 
mysteries. 

135 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIE 
"Still things have to be worse than they 
generally are anywhere to keep a boy 
down-hearted right along — specially a 
boy like Mr. Lincoln, with an investigatin' 
turn of mind like his, so many new things 
comin' along to surprise you. Why it 
was almost like Robinson Crusoe out there 
— ^wild land, havin' to make everything 
for yourself — ^hunt your meat and gi'ow 
your cotton, mighty excitin' life for a boy 
— lots to do — lots of fun, too, winter and 
summer. Somehow when you grow up 
in the comitry you can't make out that 
God ain't kind, if he is severe. I reckon 
that was the way Mr. Lincoln sized it up 
early ; world might be a vale of tears, like 
they taught, but he saw it was mighty in- 
terestin' too, and a good deal of fun to be 
got along with the tears. 

"Trouble was later to keep things bal- 
anced. The older he grew, the more he 
read, and he begun to run up against a 
136 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
kind of thinkin' along about the time he 
was twenty-one or twenty-two that was a 
good deal different from that he'd been 
used to, books that made out the Bible 
wa'n't so, that even said there wa'n't any 
God. We all took a turn at readin' Tom 
Paine and Voltaire out here, and there was 
another book — somebody's 'Ruins' — I 
forget the name." 
''Volney?" 

"Yes, that's it. Volney's Ruins." 
"Do you know I think that book took 
an awful grip on Mr. Lincoln. I reckon 
it was the first time he had ever realized 
how long the world's been runnin'; how 
many lots of men have lived and settled 
countries and built cities and how time and 
time again they've all been wiped out. 
Mr. Lincoln couldn't get over that. I've 
heard him talk about how old the world 
was time and time again, how nothing 
lasted — men — cities — nations. One set 
137 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
on top of another — men comin' along just 
as interested and busy as we are, in doin' 
things, and then little by little all they 
done passin' away. 

"He was always speculatin' about that 
kind of thing. I remember in '48 when 
he came back from Congress he stopped 
to see Niagara Falls. Well, sir, when he 
got home he couldn't talk about anything 
else for days, seemed to knock politics 
clean out of his mind. He'd sit there that 
fall in that chair you're in and talk 
and talk about it. Talk just like it's 
printed in those books his secretary got 
up. I never cared myself for all those 
articles they wrote. Wrong, am I? 
Mebbe so, but there wa'n't enough of Mr. 
Lincoln in 'em to suit me. I wanted to 
know what he said about everything in 
his own words. But I tell you when I 
saw the books with the things he had said 
and wrote all brought together nice and 

138 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
neat, and one after another, I just took to 
that. I've got 'em here in my desk, often 
read 'em and lots of it sounds just as nat- 
ural, almost hear him sayin' it, just as if 
he was settin' here by the stove. 

"Now what he tells about Niagara in the 
book is like that — just as if he was here. 
I can hear him sayin'; *Why, Billy, when 
Columbus first landed here, when Christ 
suffered on the Cross, when JNIoses crossed 
dry-shod through the Red Sea, even when 
Adam was first made, Niagara was roarin' 
away. He'd talk in here just as it is 
printed there; how the big beasts whose 
bones they've found in mounds must have 
seen the falls, how it's older than them and 
and older than the first race of men. 
They're all dead and gone, not even bones 
of many of 'em left, and yet there's 
Niagara boomin' away fresh as ever. 

"He used to prove by the way the water 
had worn away the rocks that the world 

139 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
was at least fourteen thousand years old. 
A long spell, but folks tell me it ain't 
nothin' to what is bein' estimated now. 

"Makes men seem pretty small, don't 
it? God seems to wipe 'em out as care- 
less like as if He were cleanin' a slate. 
How could He care and do that? It 
made such a mite of a man, no better'n 
a fly. That's what bothered Mr. Lincoln. 
I know how he felt. That's the way it 
hit me when I first began to understand 
all the stars were worlds like ours. 
What I couldn't see and can't now is how 
we can be so blame sure ours is the only 
world with men on. And if they're 
others and they're wiped out regular like 
we are, well it knocked me all of a heap at 
first, 'peared to me mighty unlikely that 
God knew anything about me, 

"I expect Mr. Lincoln felt something 
like that when he studied how old the 

140 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
world was and how one set of ruins was 
piled on top of another. 

"Then there was another thing. Lots 
of those old cities and old nations wa'n't 
Christian at all, and yet accordin' to the 
ruins it looked as if the people was just 
as happy, knew just as much, had just 
as good laws as any Christian nation now ; 
some of them a blamed sight better. Now 
how was a boy like Lincoln going to 
handle a problem like that? Well I 
guess for a time he handled it like the man 
who wrote about the Ruins. Never 
seemed queer to me he should have writ- 
ten a free-thinkin' book after that kind 
of readin'. I reckon he had to write some- 
thing to get his head clear. iVUus had 
to have things clear. 

"You know that story of course about 
that book. First time I ever heard it 
was back in 1846 when him and Elder 

141 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
Cartwright was runnin' for Congress. 
You know about Cartwright? Well, sir, 
he made his campaign against Lincoln 
in '46, not on politics at all — made it on 
chargin' him with bein' an infidel because 
he wa'n't a church member and because 
jhe said Mr. Lincoln had written a free 
thought book when he was a boy. He 
kept it up until along in the fall JMr. 
Lincoln shut him up good. He'd gone 
down to where Cartwright lived to make 
a political speech and some of us went 
along. Cartwright was runnin' a revival, 
and long in the evening before startin' 
home we went in and set in the back of 
the church. When it came time to ask 
sinners to come forward, the elder got 
pretty excited. 'Where be you goin' V he 
shouted. 'To Hell if you don't repent 
and come to this altar.' At last he began 
to call on Mr. Lincoln to come forward. 

142 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
Well, you know nobody likes to be called 
out like that right in meetin'. Mr. Lin- 
coln didn't budge, just set there. The 
elder he kept it up. Finally he shouted, 
*If Mr. Lincoln ain't goin' to repent and 
go to Heaven, where is he goin'?' In- 
timatin', I suppose, that he was headed for 
Hell. *Where be you goin', ]Mr. Lin- 
coln?' he shouted. 

"Well, sir, at that Mr. Lincoln rose up 
and said quiet like: 

" 'I'm goin' to Congress.' 

"For a minute you could have heard a 
pin drop and then — ^well, I just snorted 
• — couldn't help it. JVIa was awful 
ashamed when I told her, said I oughtin' 
to done it — right in meetin', but I couldn't 
help it — just set there and shook and 
shook. The elder didn't make any more 
observations to ]Mr. Lincoln that trip. 

"Goin' home I said, 'Mr. Lincoln, you 

143 



IN LINCOLN* S CHAIR 
just served the elder right, shut him up, 
and I guess you're right; you be goin' to 
Congress.' 

"^Well, Billy,' he said, smilin' and 
lookin' serious. *I've made up my mind 
that Brother Cartwright ain't goin' to 
make the religion of Jesus Chi-ist a polit- 
ical issue in this District if I can help it.' 

"Some of the elder's friends pretended 
to think Mr. Lincoln was mockin' at the 
Christian religion when he answered back 
like that. Not a bit. He was protectin' 
it accordin' to my way of thinkin'. 

*'I reckon I understand him a little be- 
cause I'm more or less that way myself — 
can't help seein' things funny. I've done 
a lot of things Ma says people misunder- 
stand. A while back comin' home from 
New York I did somethin' I expect some 
people would have called mockin' at re- 
ligion; Mr. Lincoln wouldn't. 

"You see I'd been down to buy drugs 

144 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
and comin' home I was readin' the Bible 
in the mornin' in my seat in the sleepin' 
car. Alius read a chapter every mornin', 
]Ma got me in the way of it, and I like it 
— does me good — ^keeps me from burstin' 
out at somebody when I get mad, that is, 
it does for the most part. 

"Well, as I was sayin', I was readin' 
my chapter, and I reckon mebbe I was 
readin' out loud when I looked up and 
see the porter lookin' at me and kinda 
snicker in'. 

" 'See here, boy,' I says, 'you smilin' at 
the Bible. Well, you set down there. Set 
down,' I says. I'm a pretty stout man as 
you can see, weigh 200, and I reckon I can 
throw most men my size. Why, I've 
^vl•estled ndth Mr. Lincoln, yes, sir, wres- 
tled with Abraham Lincoln, right out there 
in the alley. You see, I ain't used to bein' 
disobeyed, and that nigger knew it, and 
he just dropped. 

145 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
" 'Boy,' I says, *I'm goin' to read you a 
chapter out of this Bible, and you're goin' 
to listen.' And I did it. *Now,' I says, 
*down with you on your knees, we're goin' 
to have prayers.' Well, sir, you never 
seen such a scared darky. Down he went, 
and down I went, and I prayed out loud 
for that porter's soul and before I was 
through he was sayin' *Amen.' 

"Of course the passengers began to 
take notice, and about the time I was done 
along came the conductor, and he lit into 
me and said he wa'n't goin' to have any 
such performances in his car. 

"Well, you can better guess that gave 
me a text. He'd a man in that car fillin' 
himself up with liquor half the night, just 
plain drunk and disorderly. 'I ain't 
heard you makin' any loud objections to 
the drinkin' goin' on in this car,' I says. 
*If that don't disturb the peace, prayin' 
won't.' And two or three passengers just 

146 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
chimed right in and said, 'That's so. 
Do us all good if we had more prayin' and 
less drinkin'.' Fact was, I was quite 
popular the rest of the trip. 

"Now I reckon some would a been 
shocked by what I done. Ma said when 
I told her. *Now you know, William, it 
wasn't that porter's soul you was inter- 
ested in half as much as gettin' a little fun 
out of him.' Well, mebbe so. I won't 
deny there was some mischief in it. But 
it wouldn't have shocked ]Mr. Lincohi. 
He'd understood. Seems a pity I can't 
tell him about that. He'd enjoyed it. 

"Well, to go back to Cartwright and the 
free thought book he said Lincoln wrote 
when he was a boy. The elder didn't 
pretend he'd seen the book; said the reason 
he hadn't was that it was never printed, 
only written, and that not many people 
ever did see it because Sam Hill, the store- 
keeper down to New Salem, thinkin' it 
147 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
might hurt Lincoln had snatched it away 
and thrown it into the stove and burnt it 
up. Now what do you think of that? 

"Well, Cartwright didn't get elected — 
got beaten — beaten bad and nobody 
around here ever talked about that book 
when Mr. Lincoln was runnin' for Pres- 
ident that I heard of. It was after he 
was dead that somebody raked up that 
story again and printed it. It never made 
much difference to me. I alius thought 
it likely he did write something along 
the lines he'd been readin' after. But 
sakes alive, you ought to seen the fur fly 
out here. All the church people riz right 
up and proved it wa'n't so ; and those that 
didn't profess lit in and proved it was so. 
They got all the old inhabitants of San- 
gamon County who knew Mr. Lincoln to 
writin' letters. Lot of them published 
in the papers. 

**,One of the most interestin' accordin' to 

148 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
my way of thinkin' was a letter that came 
out from Mentor Graham, Lincoln's old 
school-master. I don't remember it ex- 
act, but near as I can recall he said Lin- 
coln asked him one day when he was livin' 
at his house going to school what he 
thought about the anger of the Lord, and 
then he went on to say that he had writ- 
ten something along that line and wished 
Mr. Graham would read it. Well, sir, 
Mr. Graham wrote in that letter that this 
thing Lincoln wrote proved God was too 
good to destroy the people He'd made, and 
that all the misery Adam brought on us 
by his sin had been wiped out by the atone- 
ment of Christ. Now mind that was an 
honest man writin' that letter, a man 
who'd been Lincoln's friend from the 
start. To be sure it was some time after 
the event — pretty near 40 years and I 
must say I always suspicion a man's re- 
membering anything very exact after 40 
149 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
years. But one thing is sure, Mentor 
Graham knew Lincoln in those days, and 
that's more than most of them that was 
arguin' this thing did. 

"Always seemed to me about as reliable 
testimony as anybody offered. I con- 
tended that most likely Lincoln did write 
just what Mentor Graham said he did, and 
that the brethren thought it was dangerous 
doctrine to make out God was that good, 
and so they called him an infidel. JSTothin' 
riled those old fellows religiously like try- 
in' to make out God didn't damn every- 
body that didn't believe according to the 
way they read the Scriptures. Seemed 
to hate to think about Mr. Lincoln's God. 
I almost felt sometimes as if they'd rather 
a man would say there wa'n't no God than 
to make him out a God of Mercy. 

'*But sakes' ahve. Mentor Graham's 
letter didn't settle it. The boys used to 
get to rowin' about it in here sometimes 

150 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
around the stove until I could hardly 
keep track of my perscriptions. The 
funniest thing you ever heard was one 
night when they were at it and an old 
fellow who used to live in New Salem 
dropped in, so they put it up to him; said 
he lived in New Salem in '33; said he 
knew Lincoln. Wanted to know if he 
ever heard of his writin' a book that Sam 
Hill burned up in the stove in his store. 
The old fellow listened all through with- 
out sayin' a word, and when they was fin- 
ished he said, solemn like, * Couldn't have 
happened. Wa'n't no stove. Sam Hill 
never had one.' 

"Well, sir, you ought to seen their 
jaws drop. Just set starin' at him and I 
thought I'd die a laffin' to see 'em collapse. 
I wish Mr. Lincoln could have heard that 
old fellow, ^Wa'n't no stove.' How he'd 
enjoyed that — *Wa'n't no stove.' 

"But for all that I never regarded that 

151 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
witness over high. Of course Sam Hill 
must have had a stove otherwise there 
wouldn't have been a place for folks to 
set around. 

"It ain't important to my mind what 
was in that book. What's important is 
that Abraham Lincoln wa's wrestlin' in 
those days to find out the truth, wa'n't 
content like I was to settle down smoth- 
erin' any reservations that I might a had. 
He never did that, grappled hard with 
everything touchin' religion that came up, 
no matter w^hich side it was. He never 
shirked the church if he wa'n't a member, 
went regular, used to go to revivals and 
camp meetings too in those days when he 
was readin' the *Ruins.' Most of the 
boys who didn't profess went to camp 
meetings for deviltry — hang around on 
the edges — playin' tricks — teasin' the 
girls — sometimes gettin' into regular 
fights. Mr. Lincoln never joined into 

152 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
any horse play like that. He took it 
solemn. I reckon he wouldn't ever hesi- 
tated a minute to go forward and ask 
prayers if he'd really believed that was 
the way for him to find God. He knew 
it wa'n't. The God he was search in' for 
wa'n't the kind they was preachin'. He 
was tryin' to find one that he could re- 
concile with what he was findin' out about 
the world — its ruins — its misery. Clear 
as day to me that that was what he was 
after from the start — some kind of plan 
in things, that he could agree to. 

"He certainly did have a lot to discour- 
age him — worst was when he lost his 
sweetheart. I've alius figured it out that 
if Ann Rutledge had lived and married 
him he'd been a different man — leastwise 
he'd been happier. He might have even 
got converted and joined the church, like 
I did after I courted Ma. A good woman 
sort of carries a man along when he loves 

153 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
'her. It's a mighty sight easier to beheve 
in the goodness of the Lord and the hap- 
piness of man when you're in love Hke 
I've alius been, and like he was with that 
girl. 

^ 'There was no doubt she was a fine girl 
— no doubt he loved her. When she died 
he was all broke up for days. I've heard 
his old friends tell how he give up workin' 
and readin' — wandered off into the fields 
talkin' to himself. Seemed as if he 
couldn't bear to think of her covered over 
with snow — beaten on by rain — wastin' 
away — eaten by worms. I tell you he 
was the kind that saw it all as it was. 
That's the hard part of bein' so honest 
you see things just as they are — don't pre- 
tend things are different — ^just as they 
are. He couldn't get over it. I believe 
it's the Lord's mercy he didn't kill himself 
those days. Everybody thought he was 
goin' crazy, but I rather think myself he 

154 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
was wrestlin' with himself, trjan' to make 
himself live. Men like him want to die 
pretty often. I reckon he must have 
cried out many a night like Job did, 
*What is mine end that I should prolong 
my life? My soul chooseth strangling 
and death rather than hfe. I loathe it. 
I would not live alway.' 

*'He pulled out, of course, but he never 
got over havin' spells of terrible gloom. 
I expect there was always a good many 
nights up to the end when he wondered if 
life was worth keepin'. Black moods 
took him and he'd go days not hardly 
speakin' to people — come in here — set by 
the stove — not say in' a word — get up — 
go out — ^hardly noticin' you. Boys un- 
derstood, used to say 'Mr. Lincoln's got 
the blues.' 

"Curious how quick things changed 
with him. He'd be settin' here, laffin' 
and jokin', tellin' stories and somebody'd 

155 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
drop some little thing, nobody else would 
think about, and suddent his eyes would 
go sad and his face broodin' and he'd stop 
talkin' or like as not get up and go out. 
I don't mean to say this happened often. 
Of course that wa'n't so; as I've told you 
no end of times, he was the best company 
that ever was — ^the fullest of stories and 
jokes, and nobody could talk serious like 
him. You could listen forever when he'd 
get to arguin', but spite of all that you 
knew somehow he was a lonely man who 
had to fight hard to keep up his feelin' 
that life was worth goin' on with. Gave 
you queer feelin' about him — you knew 
he was different from the others, and it 
kept you from bein' over-familiar. 

"There was a man in here the other day 
I hadn't seen for years — used to be a con- 
ductor between here and Chicago — knew 
him well. It tickled him to death to have 
me set him in that chair you're in — looked 
156 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
it all over, said it seemed as if he could 
just see Mr. Lincoln settin' there. Well, 
he got to talkin' about all the big bugs 
that used to travel with him. Little Dug, 
Judge Davis, Logan, Swett, Welden, 
and all the rest; and he said something 
about Mr. Lincoln that shows how he 
struck ordinary people. He said Lincoln 
was the most folksy of any of them, but 
that there was something about him that 
made everybody stand a little in awe of 
him. You could get near him in a sort 
of neighborly way, as though you had al- 
ways known him, but there was something 
tremendous between you and him all the 
time. 

*'This man said he had eaten with him 
many times at the railroad eatin' houses. 
Everybody tried to get near Lincoln 
when he was eatin', because he was such 
good company, but they looked at him 
with a kind of wonder, couldn't exactly 
157 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
make him out. Sometimes there was a 
dreadful lonehness in his look, and the 
boys used to wonder what he was thinkin' 
about. Whatever it was, he was think- 
in' all alone. No one was afraid of him, 
but there was something about him that 
made plain folks feel toward him a good 
deal as a child feels toward his father, 
because you know every child looks upon 
his father as a wonderful man. 

"There ain't any doubt but there was 
a good many years after JNIr. Lincoln got 
started and everybody in the state held 
him high, when he was a disappointed man 
and when he brooded a good deal over the 
way life was goin'. Trouble was he 
hadn't got a grip yet on anything that 
satisfied him. He hadn't made a go of 
politics, had quit it. Of course he had 
plenty of law practice, but. Lord a 
mighty, you take a town like this was 
along in the 40's and 50's, when Mr. Lin- 

158 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
coin was practicin' here, and get right 
down to what was really happenin', and it 
was enuff to make a broodin' man like him 
sick, and want to quit. He had to handle 
it all, a law\^er does, men fightin' over a 
dollar, gettin' rich on cheatin', stingy with 
their wives, breakin' up famihes, quar- 
relin' over wills, neglectin' the old folks 
and yet standin' high in the church, regu- 
lar at prayer meetin', and teachin' in Sun- 
day School. There was a lot of steady 
meanness like that all around, and it made 
him feel bad. 

*'And then there was dreadful things 
happened every now and then, men takin' 
up with girls when they had good wives 
of their o^vn. There's more than one 
poor child lyin' over there in the grave- 
yard because some onery old scoundrel 
got the better of her, and there's more 
than one good man been put to shame in 
this town because some woman who was 
159 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
no better than she ought to be run him 
down. Lord, it makes you sick, and then 
every now and then right out of a clear 
sky there'd be a murder somewhere in the 
country. Nobody would talk of any- 
thing else for days. People who hardly 
ever opened their mouths would find their 
tongues and tell the durnedest things. 

"It was so all the time Mr. Lincoln 
was practicin' out here. And it made 
him pretty miserable sometimes, I reckon, 
to see so much meanness around. I 
never knew a man who liked people bet- 
ter'n Mr. Lincoln did — seemed as if he 
felt the world ought to be happy, and 
that it could be if people would only do 
the right thing. You've heard people 
tellin' how he'd refuse a case often if he 
didn't think it ought to be brought. 
Well, sir, that's true. I've heard him 
argue time and again with the boys about 
the duty of lawyers to discourage law- 
160 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
suits. 'It's our business to be peacemak- 
ers,' he used to tell 'em, 'not to stir up 
quarrels for the sake of makin' a little 
money.' I remember somebody tellin' 
how they heard him leeturin' a man who'd 
brought him a case, and pointed out that 
by some sort of a legal trick, he could get 
$600. Made Lincoln mad all through. 
'I won't take your case,' he said, *but I'll 
give you some free advice. You're a 
husky young man. Go to work and earn 
your $600.' 

"I've always figured it out that he was 
a sight more contented after he got his 
grip on the slavery question. You know 
how he felt about slavery; thought it was 
wrong, and when he began to see there 
was a chance to fight it in a way that 
would count, he felt different towards his 
life, saw it did mean something, began to 
feel he was some real use. I reckon he 
began to believe God had a place for him 
161 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
— that he was put into the world for a 
good and sufficient reason. Now as I 
see Mr. Lincoln, that was all he ever 
needed to reconcile him to things. As he 
began to see more and more that he had 
his argument sound, and that it was 
takin' hold in the country, that men was 
listenin' to him and sayin' he had it right, 
why more and more he was something like 
happy. He made up his mind that the 
time had come when God meant to say to 
slavery, 'Thus far and no farther,' and he 
was ready to put in his best licks to help 
Him. 

"He wrestled with that question till he 
drove it clean out of politics right down 
onto bed rock of right and wrong, and 
there he stood; slavery was wrong, and 
accordin' to his way of lookin' at it, peo- 
ple who pretended to regulate their lives 
on religion ought to be agin it. Alius 
troubled him a lot and sometimes made 
162 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
him pretty bitter that so many folks that 
stood high as Christians was for slaver>\ 
I remember Newt Bateman tellin' how 
Lincoln came in his office one day after 
his nomination — Newt was State School 
Superintendent, and he and Mr. Lincoln 
was always gi-eat friends, — ^well, he said 
Mr. Lincoln came in with a report of a 
canvass of how people in Springfield were 
goin' to vote, and he said: 

" 'Let's see how the ministers in this 
tov/n are goin' to vote,' and he went 
through the list pickin' 'em out and set- 
tin' 'em down, and, would you believe it 
now, he found that out of 23 ministers 20 
were against him. He was dreadfully 
upset, and talked a long time about it. 
Newt said he pulled a New Testament 
out of his pocket. 

" 'What I don't understand,' he said, 
'is how anybody can think this book stands 
for slavery. Human bondage can't live 

163 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
a minute in its light, and yet here's all 
these men who consider themselves called 
to make the teachin' of this book clear 
votin' against me. I don't understand 
it. 

" 'They know Douglas don't care 
whether slavery's voted up or down, but 
they ought to know that God cares and 
humanity cares and they know I care. 
They ain't been readin' their Bibles right. 

" 'Seems to me sometimes as if God had 
borne with this thing until the very teach- 
ers of religion had come to defend it out 
of the Bible. But they'll find the day 
will come when His wrath will upset it. 
I believe the cup of iniquity is full, and 
that before we get through God will make 
the country suffer for toleratin' a thing 
that is so contrary to what He teaches in 
this Book.' 

"As I see it, that idee grew in him. 
You know how he hated war. Seemed 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
as if he couldn't stand it sometimes, but 
there ain't no doubt that more and more 
he looked at it as God's doin' — His way 
of punishin' men for their sin in allowin' 
slavery. He said that more'n once to the 
country. Remember what he wrote in 
his call for a fast-day in the spring of 
'63? No? Well, I've got it here— just 
let me read it to you." 

Billy rose, and after lingering long 
enough at the window to remark that the 
"storm wa'n't lettin' up any," went to a 
scratched and worn desk, a companion 
piece to "jMr. Lincoln's chair," and took 
from the drawer where he kept his pre- 
cious relics a bundle of faded yellow news- 
papers and selected a copy of the New 
York Tribune of March 31, 1863. 

''Now you listen," said Billy, ''and see 

if I ain't right that his idee when he talked 

to Newt had takin' hold of him deep." 

So Billy read sonorously the sentences 

165 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
which seemed to him to demonstrate his 
point : 

" 'Insomuch as we know that by His di- 
vine law nations, hke individuals, are sub- 
jected to punishments and chastisements 
in this world, may we not justly fear that 
the awful calamity of civil war which now 
desolates the land may be but a punish- 
ment inflicted upon us for our presumptu- 
ous sins, to the needful end of our national 
reformation as a whole people.' 

"Isn't that just what he said to Newt 
Bateman," Billy stopped long enough to 
remark. 

" 'We have been the recipients of the 
choicest bounties of Heaven. We have 
been preserved, these many years, in 
peace and prosperity. We have grown 
in numbers, wealth, and power as no other 
nation has ever grown; but we have for- 
gotten God. We have forgotten the 
gracious hand which preserved us in 
166 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
peace, and multiplied and enriched and 
strengthened us; and we have vainly im- 
agined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, 
that all these blessings were produced by 
some superior wisdom and virtue of our 
own. Intoxicated with unbroken suc- 
cess, we have become too self-sufficient to 
feel the necessity of redeeming and pre- 
serving grace, too .proud to pray to the 
God that made us: 

" 'It behooves us, then, to humble our- 
selves before the offended Power, to con- 
fess our national sins, and to pray for 
clemency and forgiveness.' 

"The longer the war went on, the more 
and more sure he was that God was 
workin' out something, and hard as it was 
for him, the more and more reconciled he 
got to God's Government. Seems to me 
that's clear from what he said in his last 
Inaugural. You remember: 
167 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
**The Almighty has His own purposes. 
*Woe unto the world because of offenses! 
For it must needs be that offenses come; 
but woe to that man by whom the offense 
cometh.' Fondly do we hope, fervently 
do we pray that this mighty scourge of 
war may speedily pass away, yet if God 
wills that it continue until all the wealth 
piled by the bondsman's two hundred and 
fifty years of unrequited toil shall be 
sunk, and until eveiy drop of blood drawn 
with the lash shall be paid by another 
drawn with the sword, as was said three 
thousand years ago, so still it must be 
said, *The judgments of the Lord are 
true and righteous altogether.' 

*'I like to say that just like he said it. 
Seems kinda like music. He was that 
way sometimes, swung into sort of talk 
and made your heart stop to hsten; it was 
so sweet and solemn-like. 

''Makes me ache though to think what 
168 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
he had to go through to come out where 
he could talk so sure and calm about 
things; for certain as he was that God 
had a purpose in it all, he wa'n't so sure 
always that he was proceedin' along the 
lines the Almighty approved of. He 
never got over that struggle long as he 
was President, always askin' himself 
w^hether he was on God's side. Puzzled 
him bad that both sides thought God was 
with 'em. He pointed out more than 
once how the rebel soldiers was prayin' 
for victory just as earnest as ours — how 
the rebel people got the same kind of help 
out of prayer that the Union people did. 
And both couldn't be right. 

"There isn't any doubt he often tested 
out whether God agreed with his argu- 
ment or not, by the way things swung. 
It was that way about the Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation. You know how he 
thought about that for months, and for 
169 



IN LINCOLN*S CHAIR 
the most part kept it to himself. He 
didn't want to do it that way, was dead 
set on the North buying the slaves in- 
stead of takin' 'em. But he had the 
Emancipation Proclamation ready, and 
and he'd told God he'd let it loose if He'd 
give us the victory. Sounds queer, 
mebbe, but that's what he did. He told 
the Cabinet so, and they've told about it. 
A little mite superstitious, some would 
say. But Mr. Lincoln was a little super- 
stitious, interested in things like signs and 
dreams — specially dreams, seemed to feel 
they might be tryin' to give him a hint. 
He's told me many a time about dreams 
he'd had, used to have same dream over 
and over, never got tired studyin' what it 
meant. You remember that happened in 
the war. He'd used to dream he saw a 
curious lookin' boat runnin' full speed to- 
ward a shore he couldn't make out clear, 
had that dream before nearly all the big 
170 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 

battles — had it the night before they 
killed him, and told the Cabinet about it 
— thought it meant there'd be good news 
from Sherman. 

"He got powerful discouraged some- 
times, for it did seem the first three years 
of the war as if the Almighty wa'n't sym- 
pathizing over much with the North. 
You remember how I told you once of 
havin' a long talk with him at night that 
time I went down to Washington to see 
him. Things w^as bad, awful bad. Coun- 
try just plumb worn out with the war. 
People was beginnin' to turn against it. 
Couldn't stand the blood lettin', the suf- 
f erin', and the awful wickedness of it. 
There was a lot of that feelin' in '64. 
People willin' to give up anything — let 
the South go — let her keep her slaves — 
do anything to put an end to the killin'. 
I tell you a man has to keep his eyes ahead 
in war — keep tellin' himself over and over 
171 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
what's it all about. Mr. Lincoln had to. 
They were talkin' peace to him, riotin' 
about the drafts, stirrin' up more kinds of 
trouble for him than he ever knew there 
was, I reckon. And he felt it — felt it 
bad; and that night it seemed to do him 
good to talk it out. You see I come from 
home, and I didn't have no connection 
with things down there, and 'twas natural 
he'd open up to me as he couldn't to them 
on the ground ; and he did. 

*' *I've studied a lot, Billy,' he said, 
'whether this is God's side of this war. 
I've tried my best to figure it out straight, 
and I can't see anything but that He mu3t 
be for us. But look how things is goin'. 

" 'One thing sure all I can do is to fol- 
low what I think's right. Whatever shall 
appear to be God's will, I'll do. There's 
quite a number of people who seem to 
think they know what God wants me to 
do. They come down every now and 

172 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
then and tell me so. I must say as I've 
told some of them that it's more'n likely 
if God is goin' to reveal His will on a 
point connected with my duty He'd nat- 
urally reveal it to me. They don't all lay 
it up against me when I talk that way. 
Take the Quakers. They're good peo- 
ple, and they've been in a bad fix for they 
don't beheve in slavery, and they don't 
believe in war, and yet it seems to have 
come to the point that out of this war 
started to save free government, we're go- 
ing to get rid of slavery. But they can't 
accept that way. Still they don't lay it 
up against me that I do, and they pray 
regular for me. 

*' 'We've been wrong, North and South, 
about slavery. No use to blame it all on 
the South. We've been in it too, from 
the start. If both sides had been willin' 
to give in a httle, we might a worked it 
out, that is if we'd all been willin' to admit 
173 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
the thing was wrong, and take our share 
of the bui'den in puttin' an end to it. It's 
because we wouldn't or mebbe couldn't 
that war has come. 

" 'It's for our sins, Billy, this war is. 
We've brought it on ourselves. And 
God ain't goin' to stop it because we ask 
Him to. We've got to fulfill the law. 
We broke the law, and God wouldn't be 
God as I see Him if He didn't stand by 
His own laws and make us take all that's 
comin' to us. I can't think we won't win 
the war. Seems to me that must be God's 
way, but if we don't, and the Union is 
broken and slavery goes on, well, all it 
means accordin' to my way of seein' 
things is that the laws ain't satisfied yet, 
that we ain't done our part. There'll 
be more trouble until the reason of trouble 
ends. 

" *But I don't lay it up against God. 
Billy. What it seems ix) me He's tryin' 

174 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
to do IS to get men to see that there can't 
be any peace or happiness in this world 
so long as they ain't fair to one another. 
You can't have a happy world unless 
youVe got a just world, and slavery ain't 
just. It's got to go. I don't know 
when. It's always seemed to me a pretty 
durable struggle — did back in '58, but I 
didn't see anything so bad then as we've 
come to. Even if I'd known I couldn't 
have done different, Billy. Even if we 
don't win this war and the Confederates 
set up a country with slavery in it, that 
ain't going to end it for me. I'll have to 
go on fightin' slavery. I know God 
means I should. 

** *It takes God a long time to work out 
His will with men hke us, Billy, bad men, 
stupid men, selfish men. But even if 
we're beat, there's a gain. There are 
more men who see clear now how hard it 
is for people to rule themselves, more peo- 
175 



IN LINCOLN^S CHAIR 
pie determined government by the people 
shan't perish from the earth, more peo- 
ple willin' to admit that you can't have 
peace when you've got a thing like slavery 
goin' on. That's something, that's goin' 
to help when the next struggle comes. 

" 'You mustn't think I'm givin' in, 
Billy. I ain't, but look how things are 
goin'. What if we lose the election, and 
you must admit it looks now as if we 
would, what if we lose and a Copperhead 
Government makes peace — gives the 
South her slaves — lets the "erring sisters" 
set up for themselves. I've got to think 
about that, Billy. 

" * Seems to me I can't bear the idea all 
this blood-lettin' should end that way, for 
I know lasting peace ain't in that set of 
circumstances. That means trouble, 
more trouble, mebbe war again until we 
obey the law* of God, and let our brother 
man go free.' 

176 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 

"And lie just di'opped his hccad and 
groaned, seemed as if I could hear him 
pray in', 'Oh, my Father, if it be possible, 
let this cup pass from me !' 

*'Think he prayed? Think Abraham 
Lincoln prayed?" Billy's eyes were 
stern, and his voice full of reproachful 
surprise. 

"I know he did. You wouldn't ask 
that question if you could have heard him 
that night he left here for Washington 
sayin' good-by to us in the rain, tellin' us 
that without God's help he could not suc- 
ceed in what he was goin' into — ^that with 
it, he could not fail ; tellin' us he v/as turn- 
in' us over to God, and askin' us to re- 
member him in our prayers. Why, a man 
can't talk like that that don't pray, least- 
wise an honest man like Abraham Lin- 
coln. 

"And he couldn't have stood it without 
God, sufferin' as he did, abused as he was, 
177 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
defeated again and again, and yet always 
hangin' on, always believin'. Don't you 
see from what I've been tellin' you that 
Abraham Lincoln all through the war 
was seekin' to work with God, strugglin' 
to find out His purpose, and make it pre- 
vail on earth. A man can't do that un- 
less he gets close to God, talks with Him. 

*'How do you suppose a man — ^just a 
common man, like Abraham Lincoln, could 
ever have risen up to say anything like 
he did in ^Q5 in his Inaugural if he hadn't 
known God: 

" 'With malice toward none, with char- 
ity for all; with firmness in the right, as 
God gives us to see the right, let us strive 
on to finish the work we are in; to bind 
up the nation's wounds; to care for him 
who shall have borne the battle and for 
his widow and his orphan — to do which 
may achieve a just and lasting peace 
among ourselves and with all nations.' 

178 



IN LINCOLN'S CHAIR 
"Thcat ain't ordinaiy human nature— 
particularly when it's fightin' a war— 
that's God's nature. If that ain't what 
Christ had in mind, then I don't read the 
Bible right. 

"Yes, sir, he prayed— that's what car- 
ried him on— and God heard him and 
helped him. Fact is I never knew a 
man I felt so sure God approved of as 
Abraham Lincoln." 



179 



